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MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 



ON THE 



Life and Charactep v 



Gustave Schleicher, 

(A REPRESENTATIVE FROM TEXAS,) 



DELIVERED IN THE 



HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AND IN THE SENATE, 
FORTY-FIFTH CONGRESS, THIRD SESSION. 



PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF CONGRESS. 



WASHINGTON: 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 
I 880. 







FORTY-FIFTH CONGRESS, THIRD SESSION. 

Congress of the United States, 
In the House of Representatives, February 27, 1879. 
Resolved by the House of Representatives {the Senate concurring), That there be 
printed twelve thousand copies of the memorial addresses delivered in the Senate 
and House of Representatives upon the life and character of the late Gustave 
Schleicher, late a Representative from the State of Texas ; of which nine thousand 
shall be for the use of the House and three thousand for the use of the Senate. 
Attest : 

GEO. M. ADAMS, Clerk. 



AN ACT providing: for the engraving and printing of portraits to accompany memorial 
addresses on the late Representatives Leonard, Quinn, Welch, Williams, Douglas, Hart- 
ridge, and Schleicher. 

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of 
America in Congress assembled, That the Secretary of the Treasury be, and he is 
hereby, authorized and directed to cause to beengra- ed and printed portraits of the 
late Representatives Leonard, Quinn, Welch, Williams, Douglas, Hartridge, and 
Schleicher, to accompany memorial addresses delivered in the Senate and House 
of Representatives in honor of the said deceased Representatives, and to defray 
the expenses thereof the necessary sum is hereby appropriated out of any money 
in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, such sum to be immediately available. 

Approved, March 3, 1879 



PROCEEDINGS 



Death of Gustave Schleicher. 



PROCEEDINGS IN THE HOUSE. 



In the House of Representatives, 

January n, 1879. 

Mr. Giddings. Mr. Speaker, it becomes my painful duty to an- 
nounce to this House the death of my colleague, the Hon. Gustave 
Schleicher, late a Representative from the State of Texas, which 
occurred at his residence in this city at twenty minutes past ten 
o'clock yesterday evening. I shall at some time in the future ask 
the House to set apart a day for the consideration of the appropriate 
memorial resolutions. I offer now the resolutions which 1 send to 
the desk. 

The Clerk read as follows : 

Resolved, That the House has heard with sincere regret the an- 
nouncement of the death of Hon. Gustave Schleicher, late a 
Representative from the State of Texas. 

Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), 
That a special joint committee of eight members of the House and 
three members of the Senate be appointed to take order for superin- 
tending the funeral and to escort the remains of the deceased to San 
Antonio, Texas; and the necessary expenses attending the execution 
of this order shall be paid out of the contingent fund of the House. 

Resolved, That the Clerk communicate the foregoing resolutions 
to the Senate. 



PROCEEDINGS IN THE HOUSE. 



Resolved, That, as a mark of respect to the memory of the 
deceased, this House do now adjourn. 

The resolutions were unanimously adopted. 

The Speaker announced the appointment of the following-named 
members as the committee on the part of the House under the 
second resolution: Mr. D. C. Giddings, of Texas; Mr. C. M. 
Shelley, of Alabama; Mr. J. A. McKenzie, of Kentucky; Mr. 
Nicholas Muller, of New York; Mr. G. B. Loring, of Massa- 
chusetts; Mr. Lorenzo Brentano, of Illinois; Mr. M. I. Town- 
send, of New York, and Mr. L. Powers, of Maine. 

In accordance with the last resolution the House (at twelve 
o'clock and twenty minutes p. m.) adjourned. 

January 13, 1879. 

Mr. Swann. I am instructed by the Committee on Foreign 
Affairs to present a report and resolution in reference to the death of 
our late colleague, Mr. Gustave Schleicher. 

The Clerk read as follows : 

The Committee on Foreign Affairs desire to place upon its record its apprecia- 
tion of the kindly qualities and analytic intellect of their late member, Hon. Gus- 
tave Schleicher. 

Its members unanimously express their mature judgment of his unexampled 
merits and honest statesmanship, and his devotion to his State and his constitu- 
ents, evidenced by his assiduity and labors in the sessions of this committee and 
reported to this Congress. 

To show their unfeigned regret and sympathy to the country, to the State of 
Texas, and to the bereaved family, and to do this in such a way as to make this 
testimonial worthy and substantial : Therefore, 

Be it resolved, That in consequence of the large family of the deceased and of 
the condition of his estate, the House be requested to make the customary appro- 
priation of the balance of the salary which would be due to him, as a member of 
the Forty-fifth Congress, and that the next Congress, to which he was elected, be 
respectfully requested to make a similar appropriation of the salary which would 
have been due to him as a member of the Forty-sixth Congress. 

The resolution reported by the Committee on Foreign Affairs was 
unanimouly adopted. 



PROCEEDINGS IN THE HOUSE. 



Mr. Giddings. I offer the following resolution : 

Resolved, That the funeral ceremonies of Hon. Gustave Schlei- 
cher, late a Representative from the State of Texas, be had in the 
Hall of the House at three o'clock p. m. this day, and that the 
Senate ot the United States be requested to attend. 

The resolution was adopted unanimously. 

A message from the Senate, by Mr. Sympson, one of its clerks, 
announced the adoption of the following resolutions : 

Resolved, That the Senate has received with deep sensibility the 
announcement of the death of Hon. Gustave Schleicher, late a 
member of the House of Representatives from the State of Texas. 

Resolved, That the Senate agree to the resolution of the House of 
Representatives providing for the appointment of a joint committee 
to take order for superintending the funeral and to escort the remains 
of the deceased to San Antonio, Texas. 

Ordered, That Mr. Coke, Mr. Bayard, and Mr. Hamlin be the 
committee on the part of the Senate. 

Resolved, That, pursuant to the invitation of the House of Repre- 
sentatives, the Senate will attend the funeral ceremonies of Hon. 
Gustave Schleicher, late a member of the House of Representa- 
tives, to be held in the Hall of the House this day at three o'clock, 
and that the Senate now take a recess until five minutes to three 
o'clock. 

FUNERAL SERVICES OVER THE REMAINS OF MR. SCHLEICHER. 

At three o'clock the Senate of the United States, preceded by the 
Sergeant-at-Arms and headed by the Vice-President of the United 
States, with the Secretary, the Chief Justice, and associate justices of 
the Supreme Court, and the President of the United States and the 
members of his Cabinet, entered the Hall, were properly announced, 
and were then conducted to the seats assigned them. 



PROCEEDINGS IN THE HOUSE. 



At eight minutes past three o'clock the casket containing 
the remains was brought into the Hall, preceded by the com- 
mittee of arrangements and the Senators and Representatives from 
Texas. 

The Chaplain of the House, Rev. W. P. Harrison, D. D., read 
selections from the epistle according to Saint John, the book of Job, 
the first epistle to Timothy, and from the ninetieth psalm. 

He then offered the following prayer : 

Almighty, everlasting God, our Heavenly Father, Thou hast sum- 
moned from our midst another member of this House of Representa- 
tives. His days upon earth are numbered. He has entered into 
the eternal world. 

O God, our Father, help us to number our days, for they are but 
few. A few days hence and the places that know us now will know 
us no more forever. 

O God, let Thy truth sink deep into our hearts. Teach us Thy 
law. Give us a reverent spirit, that we may obey Thy precepts and 
serve Thee and love Thee with all our minds and hearts and 
strength. 

O Infinite Spirit, do Thou in compassion look upon the widow 
and fatherless children of our deceased friend. 

O God we cannot enter into their sorrow. We cannot fully 
sympathize with their pain and anguish. Do Thou soothe and 
comfort them. 

O Infinite Spirit, do Thou prepare for us a life of usefulness 
henceforth, so that when in the valley of the shadow of death we 
shall be called to pass Thy rod and Thy staff may support us into 
eternal life at Thy right hand. Guide us, through Jesus Christ, our 
Redeemer. Amen. 

The Chaplain next read selections from the fifteenth chapter of 
the first epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians, and afterward 
addressed the House as follows : 



PROCEEDINGS IN THE HOUSE. 7 



Again, my hearers, are we assembled to perform a mournful duty. 
The body of Gustave Schleicher, late a Representative from the 
State of Texas, lies before us. 

It becomes us in speaking of his memory to deal kindly and lov- 
ingly and truthfully. He was a man of remarkable characteristics, 
and some of these I shall venture to-day to mention as eminently 
worthy of praise and of imitation. 

Born in the city of Darmstadt, in Germany, educated at the Uni- 
versity of Giessen, in the Grand Duchy of Hess-Darmstadt, at a 
very early period of his life he manifested peculiar scientific abilities 
as a civil engineer, and became an assistant in the construction of 
several railroads in Europe. 

At the age of twenty-three he came to America, spending some 
time upon the southwestern frontiers of the United States. In the 
year 1850 he located at San Antonio, in Texas. In three years 
from that date we find him a representative in the legislature of that 
State, and certainly no small tribute is this fact to his eminent abili- 
ties. ' To acquire a foreign tongue; to become so prepared in this 
foreign language as thoroughly to comprehend the civil institutions, 
the political principles, and to represent a constituency as a legislator, 
is assuredly a very high compliment; and when it is accomplished 
in so short a period, when, rising to the second house, the highest 
body of the State legislature, a member of the senate, he was ulti- 
mately chosen to represent a district of Texas in the Congress of the 

United States. 

Only those who understand from personal experience the difficul- 
ties involved in the mastery of the English language by one born in 
a foreign land can truly appreciate the energy, the patience and 
earnestness, the zeal, the steady application which paved the way to 
his eminent success. 

It is my privilege to speak of some characteristics of our departed 
friend that I have already named as worthy of praise and of imita- 



tion. Respect for law, a spirit of obedience to law, is essential to 
the perpetuity of a free government. 

Respect for the law of the land depends in a very large measure 
upon popular esteem and respect for the men who make the law, and 
he who unsettles this confidence, he who contributes to diminish the 
faith of the people in the purity, in the wisdom, in the integrity, and 
in the honor of her law-makers and the executors of her law, 
does permanent injury to the country and ineffaceable wrong to 
society. 

It has been a stigma, my countrymen, which we have been com- 
pelled to confess in a large measure to be just, that in the political 
contests that from time to time have been waged in our land, from 
the discussion of high and important principles of administration and 
of state policy, men have descended to personal vituperation and 
abuse; and these examples have been carried into the public prints, 
until in many sections of our land no character is so pure, no integ- 
rity so unquestionable, no honesty so evident that they will not be 
assailed by the tongue of detraction. 

The man who lies before you never contributed in this direction a 
word or an act. He never felt that it was necessary, in order to 
compass his own success, to destroy the private character of a com- 
petitor. But as he felt himself to be actuated by principles of 
honesty and integrity, he recognized these in his opponent; and as a 
gentleman conscious of his own honor, so he regarded those who 
differed from him in sentiment. 

This example I consider eminently worthy of universal imitation. 
Would that the restraints that are felt in this House, the requirements 
of parliamentary usage, could be everywhere observed in the discus- 
sions that excite the people throughout our land. To maintain 
respect for authority, to maintain confidence in the ability and incor- 
ruptibility of public men, to maintain a living faith in their purity of 
purpose, these are essential principles, and they lie at the very base 



PROCEEDINGS IN THE HOUSE. 



of our future fortunes, and must form our hope for the stability and 
perpetuity of the institutions of this country. 

A second qualification which I shall notice, an admirable quality 
in our deceased friend, was his eminent love of truth and a patient, 
earnest, untiring spirit of investigation. He spared no labor, he 
yielded to no inducements of ease, but gave himself wholly, to the 
full extent of his great natural powers, to the investigation of the 
problems that came before him and every subject that demanded his 
attention. 

So thoroughly was his heart absorbed in his public duty that in 
the moments of delirium, when the mortal body to and fro was being 
tossed about, and the cords were being rapidly broken one by. one 
that bound him to mortal life, even then his mind was upon his 
public work, in his daily duties, investigating, deciding, acting in the 
delirium of the hour. 

Another and eminently characteristic feature in our deceased 
friend's character was his immovable and invincible resolution. 
When he believed himself to be right, whether in a vast majority or 
standing single and alone, if he believed himself to be right he was 
immovable. No matter what the issue might be, nor how much his 
position might endanger his personal fortunes and prospects, he fol- 
lowed the lead of his conscience and stood firm to the convictions 
of his intellect. 

Statesmen ought to lead public opinion, not to follow it. They 
who give all time and labor and thought to the great principles of 
administrative government, they who do this with intelligence, with 
ability, with zeal, will be competent to lead the judgments of the 
people. 

Our departed friend was a loving husband, a kind, indulgent 
father; generous to a fault, careless to his injury in his temporal 
interests. Free and large as his manly person was the great heart 
that beat within this cold body. The generous emotion, the tender 



2 SC 



PROCEEDINGS IN THE HOUSE. 



feeling, the consciousness which enters into distress and sympathizes 
and rises higher than the emotion of pity and takes compassion upon 
distress and bears part of its burden, these he knew. 

And thus in the midst of a useful life, a life of patient toil, of un- 
divided devotion to his adopted country's interests, he has passed 
away. His memory will endure. May the example which he left in 
these high and noble characteristics of statesmanship be a guide to 
others. 

So remembering him, may we in like steadfastness to duty, with 
like zeal and patient investigation into truth, with like strength of 
resolution and manliness of purpose, adhere to the convictions of 
right, and so shall we serve our country and serve our God. 

When these few days of mortal life shall have passed away, O 
Infinite Spirit, into the light of eternal day guide us, into the pres- 
ence of the eternal God, in the bliss of the eternal state. 

Rev. Byron Sunderland, D. D., Chaplain of the Senate, then 
offered the following prayer : 

Under the shade, O Lord, under the deep dark shade of Thy 
clouds, thickening one upon another, behold Thou all these Thy 
servants assembled here again to-day. The sweet light of the world 
is all around us ; and yet Thou hast wrapped us in the darkness of 
sorrow again and again. 

What meanest Thou, O Lord God Almighty, our Father in 
Heaven, to speak thus unto Thy children, for that they consider the 
time that we spend our years as a tale that is told. O ! out of the 
frailty of nature and out of the fever of life, yea, and from the apa- 
thy and the destruction of death itself, we beseech Thee to lift up 
the souls of Thy servants, that while their time is flowing on, and 
while the turmoil of the world is ever arising around them, they may by 
the inspiration of faith catch some glimpses of the great headlands, 
some glimpses of the immortal life that is yet to be unfolded to us. 

And now, O Lord, our God ! be graciously pleased to compassion- 



PROCEEDINGS IN THE HOUSE. 



ate the sad circle on whom this fresh trouble has so bitterly fallen. 
To the sacred memory and the tender grief for him with whom they 
now part, add Thou the peace of trust and the comfort of hope. 
Be graciously pleased to go away with them on their desolate jour- 
ney as they shall bear him hence forever, and bedew so oft his dis- 
tant grave with their tears. We commend them to Thee, and we 
pray, Heavenly Father, that Thou wilt remember to-day those mem- 
bers of this House who are not here to mingle in this funeral scence, 
but who linger in their chambers of sickness. O God ! if it pleases 
Thee, restore them to their places in this Hall 

And now again we invoke Thy blessings upon Thy servants, the 
President of the United States, and upon all the rulers of this land. 
O gracious God ! the God of our fathers, and our God, and the God 
of our children and children's children. Thou art trying us in the 
furnace of affliction, in our persons, in our families, in our nation. 
We beseech Thee lead us by a simple childlike faith to cleave ever- 
more unto Thee; and do thou dwell with us and be our Immanuel 
forever, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen ! 

The benediction having been pronounced by the Chaplain of the 
House, Rev. W. P. Harrison, the remains of the deceased were 
then removed from the Hall, to be conveyed to San Antonio, Texas, fol- 
lowed by the Texas delegation and the committee of arrangements. 

The President of the United States, the members of the Cabinet, 
the Chief Justice and associate justices of the Supreme Court, the 
Vice-President, and the members of the Senate then retired from the 
Hall. 

Mr. Hooker. In order to enable the members and officers of the 
House to accompany the remains of him whose funeral ceremonies 
have just been performed here to the railroad depot, I move that the 
House now adjourn. 

The motion was agreed to ; and accordingly (at three o'clock and 
forty- five minutes p. m.) the House adjourned. 



PROCEEDINGS IN THE HOUSE. 



January 21, 1879. 
Mr. Cabell, from the Committe on Railways and Canals, reported 
the following; which was laid on the table and ordered to be printed 
in the Record : 

Whereas the death of Gustave Schleicher having deprived the Committee 
on Railways and Canals of a chairman whose pre-eminent abilities and high 
character have been its pride, we desire to place on record our deep sensibility of 
the loss we have sustained : Therefore, 

Be it resolved. That we deplore the death of our friend, fellow-member, and 
chairman, and recognize in it not only a private affliction but also a public loss. 

Resolved, That while his recognized superior intellectual attainments and his 
well-known amiable and noble traits of character will keep his memory ever green 
in our hearts, his noblest memorial will be those public services to which he 
devoted himself with unremitting zeal, integrity, and patriotism. 

Resolved, That he has left a record of honorable deeds and of duty well per- 
formed which might well excite the emulation of the best and wisest of his surviv- 
ing colleagues. 

Resolved, That we extend to his family the assurance of our heartfelt sympathy 
in their great bereavement. 

Resolved, That we fully indorse the recommendation of the Committee on For- 
eign Affairs that the Committee on Appropriations make the usual and customary 
appropriation of salary for the benefit of the family of our late colleague. 



February 14, 1879. 
The Speaker pro tempore. The Chair desires to state that the 
addresses in memory of Mr. Schleicher, late a Representative from 
the State of Texas, which were fixed for to-morrow at two o'clock, 
will take place on Monday evening at half past seven o'clock. 



February 17, 1879. 

Mr. Giddings. Mr. Speaker, in accordance with notice hereto- 
fore given and order of the House, I now submit resolutions of re- 
spect to the memory of our late colleague, Gustave Schleicher. 

The Clerk read as follows : 

Resolved, That this House has heard with profound sorrow the 



PROCEEDINGS IN THE HOUSE. 13 

announcement of the death of Hon. Gustave Schleicher, late a 
Representative from the State of Texas. 

Resolved, That in token of regard for the memory of the lamented 
deceased the members of this House do wear the usual badge of 
mourning for thirty days. 

Resolved, That the Clerk of this House do communicate these res- 
olutions to the Senate of the United States. 

Resolved, That as a further mark of respect to the memory of the 
deceased this House do now adjourn. 



Address of ^VIr. Giddings, of Texas. 

Mr. Speaker : Mr. Schleicher was born at Darmstadt, Germany, 
November 19, 1823. We know little of his early life, except that he 
was educated at the University of Giessen, in the Grand Duchy of 
Hesse-Darmstadt; that he selected the profession of civil engineer, 
and was engaged in the construction of several works of internal 
improvement in Europe. 

He emigrated to Texas in 1847, m company with thirty-nine young 
and educated Germans, and settled on the western frontier of Texas, 
constituting what was known as the Colony of Forty. They engaged 
in agricultural pursuits and stock-raising, but owing to Indian and 
Mexican depredations the enterprise proved a failure, and he, with 
a number of his associates, in 1850, settled at San Antonio. 

By close study he became master of the English and Spanish lan- 
guages, and in 1853 was elected a member of the house of represent- 
atives of the legislature of Texas. After the close of his term, in 
1854, he was elected surveyor of Bexar land district, which was an 
important position, embracing a territory greater in extent than the 
six New England States. 

In 1859 he was elected senator from Bexar County, serving as such 



14 ADDRESS OF MR. GIDDINGS ON THE 

until 1 86 1, when he entered the Confederate service in the engineer 
corps, with the rank of captain, and served in that capacity during 
the war. 

He was chief engineer, and constructed the railroad from IndianoJa 
to Cuerco on substantially the same line established by General Joseph 
Johnston, assisted by Mr. Schleicher, in 1852, as the line of the 
San Antonio and Gulf Railroad. 

He was elected from the sixth district of Texas to the Forty-fourth 
Congress; re-elected to the Forty-fifth, and again to the Forty-sixth 
Congress, and on the 10th day of January last, at his residence in this 
city, surrounded by his devoted family and friends, after a short and 
painful illness, departed this life. In accordance with resolutions of 
the House his remains were conveyed to San Antonio, Texas, and 
on the 19th of January, with appropriate ceremonies, deposited in the 
National Cemetery at that place. 

Mr. Speaker, it is fit and proper that we should pause for a few 
moments at least, that his surviving comrades may pay suitable trib- 
ute to his many virtues as a citizen, husband, father, and public 
servant. 

The grim monster death knows no distinction. The high and the 
low, the learned and the unlearned, the rich and the poor, all must 
obey the dread summons when made. In this instance he has indeed 
chosen a shining mark. Gustave Schleicher was no ordinary man. 
Possessed of great energy of body and mind, and endowed with a 
thorough education, he could not be confined within the narrow 
limits marked out for him in the Old World. At the early age of 
twenty-four he left his native land and sought a home in the then 
unexplored portion of Western Texas, and by his indomitable will 
and perseverance met and overcame, as only brave men can, the hard- 
ships, privations, and dangers of a frontier life. He soon became 
master of two foreign languages, and by his learning, industry, integ- 
rity, and sound practical common sense, so established himself in the 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF GUSTAVE SCHLEICHER. 1 5 

confidence and affections of the people of Western Texas as to be 
chosen to represent them in the legislature, composed of bold, adven- 
turous spirits like himself, who always constitute the pioneers of civ- 
ilization, and at a time when the legislature of Texas, in point of 
general intelligence and ability, could compare favorably with any 
deliberative assembly in any country. He served with credit to him- 
self and his constituents with such men as Wigfall, Potter, Ochiltree, 
Jennings, Tarver, Willie, and Wilson. 

Mr. Schleicher was eminently practical and thorough in every- 
thing he undertook ; there was nothing superficial about him. He 
made no effort at display, but was an ardent seeker after truth, and 
one of the most patient investigators it was ever my fortune to know, 
going to the bottom and fully comprehending in all its details every 
subject upon which he was called to act. He was a close and logical 
reasoner, a profound thinker, and was never satisfied with a super- 
ficial knowledge of anything. He approached conclusions by a reg- 
ular and systematic course of study and analytical reasoning, and 
when he reached a conclusion it was to him as clear and satisfactory 
as if susceptible of mathematical demonstration, and upon it he rested 
immovable ; neither passion nor the love of popular applause could 
move him one hair's breadth from the line marked out; he would pay 
due deference to the opinions of others, listen attentively to any argu- 
ment offered, but relied upon his own convictions, and had the cour- 
age to do that which he believed to be right under all circumstances, 
though he differed from his best and most trusted friends. Philo- 
sophical in politics and in religion, submitting to no restrictions in the 
wide range of thought to which he was impelled by his innate love 
of truth, and bound by the tenets of no party or sect when in con- 
flict with his own clear convictions of right, the result of patient 
investigation and profound thought, yet, while true to those convic- 
tions as the needle to the pole, he nevertheless accorded to others the 
same liberty of thought and freedom of action he claimed for himself. 



l6 ADDRESS OF MR. GIDDINGS ON THE 

He had acquired that strictly accurate knowledge of our language 
which is possessed only by those who learn it from the best authors. 
By patient and careful study he had acquired a thorough knowledge 
and understanding of our system of government, differing so widely 
from that under which he had been reared, and though cherishing a 
praiseworthy fondness for the Fatherland and home of his childhood, ■ 
was nevertheless thoroughly Americanized, fully identified with our 
people, devoted to the principles of our free institutions and consti- 
tutional government ; and in all positions to which he was called by 
the people, discharged the high trust reposed in him with strict fidel- 
ity and a desire to promote the best interest of the whole country. 

He was justly the pride of the industrious, intelligent, law-abiding 
Germans (many of whom have found their way to Texas, induced by 
liberal grants of land made by the Republic and State of Texas), to 
whose energy and industry the unexampled progress and advance- 
ment of Texas is largely due. 

He had all the fondness for social enjoyment and pleasant recrea- 
tion for which the German is distinguished, to which was added ready 
wit, which, with his genial and generous disposition and accurate and 
varied information, rendered him a most agreeable companion and a 
safe counselor and friend. In all the relations of life, public and 
private, as husband, father, neighbor, citizen, and legislator, he came 
up to the full measure of a noble manhood, and in his death the 
people of Texas, and particularly of the sixth district, feel that they 
have sustained irreparable loss. He had devoted the best years of 
his laborious life to their service, and to his efforts more than to those 
of any other one man is attributable the present peaceful and satis- 
factory condition of the Mexican border. 

During the long and eventful career of Mr. Schleicher no stain 
rests upon his character. His most violent political opponents accord 
to him fidelity and strict integrity. He ever commanded the respect 
of all who knew him. He sleeps upon a mound overlooking the his- 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF GUSTAVE SCHLEICHER. 1 7 

tone Alamo, where the ashes of Milam, Travis, Bowie, and Crockett 
mingle with the dust. To this immortal band who, with a heroism 
more grand than that of famed Thermopylae, laid down their lives 
for the freedom of Texas, and who require no monument to perpetu- 
ate their memory, save that inscribed in the hearts and affections of 
the people they served so well, is added the name of the patriot and 
statesman, Schleicher. 

I would like to speak more in detail of the many virtues of my 
deceased colleague, and of the manifestations of appreciation of the 
loss our people have sustained, but will not trench further upon the 
field to be occupied by those who are to follow me. and who are 
better prepared to do justice to the occasion than I am. 



Address of ^/VIr. j3rentano, of Jlunois. 

Mr. Speaker: When the delegation which escorted the remains 
of our lamented colleague, Gustave Schleicher, from this hall to 
his own State, there to find a resting-place in the National Cemetery 
of San Antonio, crossed the line of the Lone Star State, it became 
clearly apparent that the people of Texas fully realized the loss which 
they had sustained. At the very threshold of that grand and promis- 
ing State we were met by a committee sent by the Legislature of 
Texas with a similar trust which was imposed upon us by this House 
to serve as an honorary escort to the lifeless body of a man who, trans- 
planted from a far-off country to the soil over which, after many a 
bloody contest, now waves in its glory the emblem of American lib- 
erty, was up to the last moments of his life active in the interests and 
for the welfare of a people who had honored him with their confi- 
dence. Only a few months ago, Mr. Schleicher, after a protracted 
and bitter election contest, elated by a glorious victory, clothed anew 
with the confidence of his fellow-citizens of both political parties and 
accompanied by their wishes for his success, had, on his way to the 



3 sc 



1 8 ADDRESS OF MR. BRENT ANO ON THE 

scene of his labors and of his public duties, crossed the northern 
frontier of his State, and the same people who then had cheered him, 
the man in the bloom of vigorous manhood, flocked now to the 
funeral car, in which, in a garden of flowers under the festoons of the 
American flag entwined with the Lone Star, was laid out in state the 
lifeless form of the man so dear to the hearts of his fellow-citizens. 
It was a sorrowful spectacle to see the people, under the subdued tones 
of the funeral dirge, approach in large and mournful processions the 
funeral car to pay the last honor to their departed friend and Repre- 
sentative, and the tears which ran down the cheeks of old and young, 
men and women, were a better eulogy on the man than my feeble 
voice is able to pronounce. Should a stranger have casually happened 
to see this outpouring of the masses, the gloom depicted in their looks 
and on their countenances, he must at once have received the impres- 
sion that it was not a common mortal, but a man whose death was con- 
sidered a public calamity, who was being carried to his last resting-place. 
At every station the same spectacle. Arrived at San Antonio, we 
found ourselves in a city of mourning. It was the principal city of 
the district represented by our deceased colleague. We must expect 
to find here disconsolate friends, personal and political. But, Mr. 
Speaker, allow me to say that I, who in the country of which Mr. 
Schleicher was a native have seen magnificent and splendid funeral 
pageants of men occupying the highest places in the monarchy, have 
never witnessed the funeral of any public man who on the way to his 
grave was honored by such an imposing cortege and at the same time 
by such sincere sorrow of the people who thronged the streets and 
followed the remains of the man whom they were used to look upon 
as their true friend. And, indeed, Mr. Schleicher has fully de- 
served the confidence of the people whom he represented in the 
highest council of the nation ; and well has he deserved of the grief 
with which the news of his demise was received, not only in his own 
State but throughout the whole country. 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF GUSTAVE SCHLEICHER. 19 



Mr. Schleicher was a man of sterling qualities of mind and char- 
acter. Born in a foreign country, the son of an humble artisan, and 
endowed with a rare intellect, which was cultivated by classical 
studies, he left the country of his birth shortly before the popular 
outbreak in 1848 which shook old Europe to its very foundations, 
and, from my personal acquaintance with my departed friend, I may 
say that he would have stood in the front ranks of the soldiers of 
liberty had he at that time still been among his former fellow-citizens. 
It was at some time in the fifth decade of the present century that 
a colony of Germans, under the auspices of German noblemen, was 
established in the State of Texas. New Braunfels was the name of 
the principal settlement of those emigrants. Exaggerated reports of 
the great success of said colony coming to Germany induced many 
who were dissatisfied with the social and political conditions of their 
country, and who believed that here was a chance of carrying their 
social theories into practice, to emigrate to Texas and join the colony 
established at New Braunfels. A company was formed in Southwest- 
ern Germany for the purpose of seeking new homes in the State of 
the Lone Star. The number of that company was limited to forty 
men, but only thirty-seven joined. They were mostly men of the 
educated and better-situated classes, comprising engineers, physi- 
cians, merchants, mechanics, farmers, and foresters. One of them 
was young Schleicher, then about twenty-five years of age. He 
was a native of Darmstadt, the capital of the little duchy of Hesse 
Darmstadt. His father, who was a joiner and furniture maker, had 
given his son a good education. After Schleicher had, at the gym- 
nasium of his native city, received a good classical education, he 
studied engineering at the University of Giessen. At that time the 
railroad connecting the city of Heidelberg, celebrated for its univer- 
sity, with the city of Frankfort on the Main, formerly a " free city " 
and the seat of government of the old German confederation, was 
being built, and here Mr. Schleicher practiced his profession, sur- 



ADDRESS OF MR. BRENTANO ON THE 



veying and superintending a portion of that road. It is a fact that 
the company of emigrants of which Schleicher was a member, 
and who were known in Texas and are so known to the present day 
as " The Forty," were adherents to socialistic and even communistic 
theories, and in Texas they expected to test the practicabilities of 
their theories, where there was plenty of room for testing the most 
chimerical theories. Reality, however, soon broke upon the theo- 
rists. The necessities of practical life and the diversity of the inclina- 
tions and the individual wants of the partners brought about a relin- 
quishment of their original plans and a dissolution of the company. 
Schleicher left the beautiful and picturesque valley of Waco Springs, 
where they had settled, and went to Bettina to cultivate the soil, a 
hard working but independent farmer. In the mean time his family, 
consisting of his father and two sisters, had arrived and settled at 
San Antonio, where Schleicher soon joined them, and where he 
engaged in business. His excellent social qualities, his affability and 
keen sense of good humor, which never left him to the last stage of 
his life, attracted a large circle of friends around him and gave him 
that popularity which was the foundation of his popular career. He 
had scarcely been admitted to citizenship in the country of his adop- 
tion when he was elected a member of the State legislature, and at 
the close of the session elected surveyor of the Bexar district. In 
1859 we find Mr. Schleicher in the senate of the State legislature 
and at the same time as one of the editors of a German paper pub- 
lished at San Antonio. When the late civil war arrayed the citizens 
of the country against one another, Mr. Schleicher retired from the 
editorial chair and cast his lot with the State that had adopted him 
and with his constituents. Their lot was his lot ; their fortunes or mis- 
fortunes were his fortunes or misfortunes. The " Lost Cause " was 
his cause. He stood by it to the end and then returned to the flag 
of the Union, and with the same fidelity with which he had served 
the Confederacy he now served the reunited country, true to the 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF GUSTAVE SCHLEICHER. 21 

Stars and Stripes, under whose cover he was carried to his last resting- 
place. 

Mr. Speaker, in the few hours which your committee spent in the 
old city of San Antonio, memorable by the bloody encounter of a 
gallant little band of American heroes with the bloodthirsty Santa 
Anna, I was told of so many noble deeds of our departed colleague — 
of how he protected through his influence in the days of revolutionary 
excitement many of his countrymen, who considered loyalty to the 
Union their paramount duty, against persecution — that I found it 
natural that his death was the cause of so much sincere sorrow, and 
that the deep sympathy for his bereaved family was not confined to 
his party friends alone, but that it was so universal. 

At the close of the civil war Mr. Schleicher returned to the prac- 
tice of his original profession. Intrusted by the Gulf and Western 
Texas Railroad Company with the construction of the road from 
Victoria to Cuero, which latter town he himself had founded, he set- 
tled again at San Antonio till his fellow-citizens, quite unexpectedly 
to him, called him to a higher field of action. It was in 1874 when 
the Democratic convention for the purpose of nominating a candi- 
date for Congress met at Goliad. Many a ballot had been taken 
without result, when a plain countryman stood up and proposed the 
name of Gustave Schleicher. His nomination gave general satis- 
faction, and he was gloriously elected to the Forty-fourth, and after- 
ward to the Forty-fifth, and again to the Forty-sixth Congress. 

Gustave Schleicher proved to be a man of sterling character, of 
great intelligence, of unusual energy and assiduity, honest and in- 
corruptible, always attentive to the wants and interests of his con- 
stituents; and, although attached to one of the great political parties 
of the country, he never was a partisan in that sense that he would 
have obeyed party dictation if any measure proposed would have 
been contrary to his convictions or right and wrong, or of what he 
deemed public welfare or the interests of his constituents required. 



ADDRESS OF MR. BRENTANO ON THE 



Having lived for more than thirty years in the State of Texas, and 
most of the time in the southwestern portion thereof, and identified 
in all his relations and interests with that country, he knew and well 
understood what legislation was required for his State and district. 
The construction of the Texas Pacific Railroad he considered as a 
measure which must promote commerce and industrial enterprises in 
his State, and therefore he labored with all his power to accomplish 
this object. His district lying along the long-stretched frontier divid- 
ing the United States from Mexico, he knew from daily experience 
how his constituents suffered from the lawless raiders who came from 
the neighboring country, which for long years was distracted by civil 
disorders and the government of which was too weak, even had it 
an earnest desire to do so, to protect a friendly neighbor from the in- 
vasion and depredation of murderers and robbers. I well remember 
the vivid picture which he gave of the sufferings of his constituents 
in our meeting of May 22, 1878; of the murders of defenseless 
women and children by savage Mexicans and cruel Indians, and how 
he appealed to this House for protection. It was on that occasion 
that he spoke the memorable words : 

Mr. Chairman, I have been accused sometimes of being a filibuster, of want- 
ing to take Mexico or part of it. Sir, I hesitate to say it, but I must say it ; God 
forbid that this country should ever become larger ; it is far too large now for the 
minds and hearts of its legislators. 

Mr. Speaker, these were bitter words, indicating how his feelings 
and his sympathies were enlisted in the cause of his constituents. His 
mind and his heart were large enough for the whole country from 
the Canadian frontier down to sunny Texas, but if he could have 
heard the resolutions passed in this House when his death was an- 
nounced, if he could have seen how a great nation which had taken 
him to its heart while alive honored him when dead, with what lib- 
erality the Congress of the United States provided for the return 
home of his widow and children and for carrying his soulless body 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF GUSTAVE SCHLEICHER. 23 



to his last resting-place, he would certainly have modified those bit- 
ter words and would have cheerfully acknowledged that the minds 
and hearts of the American legislators are large enough to embrace 
the whole country, to embrace with the whole love those who were 
born on this soil and those who come here to participate in the bless- 
ings of republican institutions and liberty. Mr. Speaker, Gustave 
Schleichr, although born in Germany, has lived and died an Ameri- 
can. Mr. Speaker, it may be proper for me whose native home was 
only a few miles distant from the birthplace of my departed friend to 
say what might not be considered quite as proper if it came from 
another side, that if Mr. Schleicher had remained in his original 
country ; if he had served his people with the same zeal, the same 
fidelity, and the same success; if he had attained the same high posi- 
tions in public life ; if he had died while a member of the German 
Reichstag, no such pageant would have escorted his earthly remains 
to their grave. By sending three Senators and eight members of this 
House as an escort of honor of the lifeless body of a Representative 
of the people over more than two thousand miles, the nation in honor- 
ing one of its citizens has honored' itself. 

Mr. Speaker, in closing these remarks allow me to present the res- 
olutions which the citizens of Medina County, constituents of Mr. 
Schleicher, passed when they received the announcement of his 
death, and which express the feelings which I found everywhere per- 
vaded the country through which we escorted his remains. I send 
them herewith to the Clerk's desk, and respectfully ask that they may 
to read as a part of my remarks : 

The Clerk read as follows : 

We, the citizens of Medina County, Texas, and constituent; of the late Hon. 
Gustave Schleicher, desiring to testify in a marked manner our appreciation of 
one who, at all times, whether as an officer or as a private citizen, was peculiarly 
the friend of our county and of our frontier, do resolve : 

1. That we receive the announcement of the death of Hon. Gustave Schlei- 
cher, late Representative in the Congress of the United States from the sixth 
Congressional district of Texas, with feelings of profound sorrow and regret. 



24 ADDRESS OF MR. M KEN2IE ON THE 



2. That in the late Hon. Gustave Schleicher we recognized a statesman of 
enlarged and liberal views, a public servant without venality, faithful and conscien- 
tious in the discharge of every duty, a man of pure and unsullied honor, a stain- 
less patriot. He was ever ready to succor the needy, and his charity was as broad 
in its exercise as it was narrow in its ostentation. In his friendship he was steady 
and firm ; wise in counsel, he was ever ready to aid by advice those younger and 
less experienced than he ; to a disposition kind and gentle and peaceful, he united 
the unflinching bravery of a Bayard. A thorough, painstaking student, he was 
not satisfied with superficial knowledge, but mastered every subject that claimed 
his attention. The wail of the grief-stricken widow and the cries of his bereaved 
children show that the loving husband and fond father are no more. 

3. That by the death of Hon. Gustave Schleicher the State of Texas has lost 
a faithful and upright citizen ; the United States an officer of great ability and in- 
corruptible honor; the sixth Congressional district of Texas the bulwark of its 
frontier ; and the world an affable, courteous gentlemen, and liberty one of its 
stanchest defenders. 

4. That we condole with the family of the deceased in this their great bereave- 
ment, and humbly trust that He who " tempers the wind to the shorn lamb " will 
comfort the bereaved as none but He can. 



^DDRESS OF JAR. ^VIcJCeNZIE, OF J^ENTUCKY. 

Mr. Speaker: Among all civilized peoples, from immemorial times, 
it has been a beautiful custom to mingle with laments for the dead 
eulogies of their well-spent lives. The Greek elegy, the resounding 
prose of the Roman orators, the limpid speech and incisive phrase 
of the French Academy, and the lofty and pathetic verse of Milton 
and Tennyson have been alike in the one great purpose of teaching 
the lesson that the highest life is that which is lived for others. The 
public servant has this reward, that as the tendency of his labors 
and toil is to take him out of himself and set before him the public 
good as his highest aim, so the popular heart is willing to condone 
his faults and errors, and to remember only that he was one who has 
in his way striven to serve his fellow-man. But when such a public 
servant has brought uncommon physical energy and large faculties 
of head and heart to the tasks and obligations of political life, we 
must feel it to be a sad yet sacred duty to bring to his bier our un- 
availing regrets. • Such a public servant was Gustave Schleicher. 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF GUSTAVE SCHLEICHER. 



25 



The words of sorrow redeem nothing from the grave. They are 
as brief memorials as those perishing wreaths of flowers which the 
unconscious irony of speech has christened "immortelles." 

A good man has fallen. A valuable public servant has gone from 
among us. A representative of some of the best elements of our 
national progress, a statesman of the most enlarged and liberal 
views, a tried and trusted legislator, has answered at a higher roll- 
call than this. 

Mr. Schleicher could not be withdrawn from any arena on which 
he had moved without his loss being severely felt. Born upon a for- 
eign soil, a land that has given to literature a Goethe and a Schiller, 
to the ranks of war Prince Frederick and Von Moltke, to science 
Von Humboldt, and to statecraft the great Chancellor Bismarck, he 
brought to America some of the best and most useful of those 
national traits which characterize his German fatherland. His was 
the massive and masculine judgment; his the far-reaching forecast, 
the calm courage, the broad and tolerant views of life and man, 
which mark the best of his country. 

To whatever field of knowledge he turned his attention it soon 
became his own. His mastery of Mexican affairs made him an 
authority on that subject. He was the great defender of that ex- 
posed frontier, and in every cottage, hamlet, and jacal from Browns- 
ville to El Paso a sense of personal bereavement is felt at his 

untimely death. 

But though alien to our soil by birth, Mr. Schleicher was a native 
to the institutions of our great Republic. Wherever liberty dwelt, 
there was his country. 

He was a lover of our free institutions by nature, by education, by 
aspiration, and by the teaching of that ripe experience which crowns 
with wisdom the laborious and faithful thinker and observer of men. 
In his political views he was fettered by no narrow provincialism or 
partisan bigotry. He welcomed what he thought to be good from 



4 sc 



26 ADDRESS OF MR. M'KENZIE ON THE 

whatsoever quarter it came. It is fitting that the tribute to such a 
memory should be made in no exclusive or sectional spirit. He was 
an honor to his party, to his State, and to his country ; an honor to 
those people of Texas whose quick intelligence selected him as their 
Representative, and an honor to this House, in which the voice of 
the people and the demands of eternal justice and right meet and 
should be reconciled. 

This gathering to-day in honor of our dead friend is no idle cere- 
mony. In meeting thus, under the shadow of the supulcher, we lay 
aside all asperities, personal and political, for the time, and may we 
not lay aside some of them at least forever. Could the voice that is 
silenced reach us from the v grave, such I am sure would be its wise 
and wholesome and kindly counsel now, as it was ever while in the 
land of the living. 

Mr. Speaker, it was my fortune to have served upon the Commit- 
tee on Railways and Canals, of which Mr. Schleicher was the hon- 
ored chairman, and I had large opportunity to study and form, as I 
trust, a just estimate of his character. 

His powers of generalization and analysis, his patient, unflagging 
industry, his scholarship, his love of truth, the spirit of judicial fair- 
ness and candor which characterized him, his merit, his modesty, 
and his great abilities at once attracted the attention and compelled 
the admiration of the committee; and I may be pardoned for say- 
ing that in my humble judgment many of his reports, notably the 
one relating to our Mexican border troubles from the Committee on 
Foreign Affairs, are among the ablest contributions to the* literature 
of the Forty-fifth Congress. 

I accompanied Mr. Schleicher's remains to his far-off home in 
the Lone Star State. From Denison to San Antonio the people of 
that great Commonwealth assembled along the line of railway at 
every village, town, and city, irrespective of race, party, or creed, to 
do honor to the distinguished dead ; and it was no idle ceremony, 



no hollow mockery, no unmeaning pageant, for you could read in 
tear-dimmed eyes the story of a people's loss. 

As evidence of the esteem in which Mr. Schleicher was held in 
the State of Texas, when the news of his death reached the capital 
of his State the legislature, then in session, unanimously adopted the 
following resolutions : 

Resolved by the house of representatives {the senate concurring), That a com- 
mittee consisting of three member, of the house be appointed by the speaker to 
act with such members as may be appointed by the senate to meet the Congres- 
sional committee having charge of the remains of the late Hon. Gustave 
Schleicher, and now on their way to Texas to deposit them in the land that the 
deceased loved so well; and also to co-operate with the Congressional committee 
in all other fitting honors and care of the distinguished dead. 

Resolved, That it is the desire of the house of representatives that the mortal 
remains of the late Gustave Schleicher, his family assenting, be interred in the 
cemetery of the State at Austin, which has been expressly established and set 
apart as a burial-ground for the illustrious dead whom the people of the State of 
Texas desire to hold in perpetual honor for services rendered to the people. 

House of Representatives, 

Austin, Texas, February 10, 1879. 
I hereby certify that the above and foregoing concurrent resolutions were 
adopted by the house of representatives of the legislature of the State of Texas 
on the 15th day of January, A. D. 1879; and that, in pursuance thereof, Hons. 
E. D. Linn, J. E. McComb, N. G. Collins, and C. L. Warzbach were appointed 
a committee on the part of the house to carry out the provisions of said resolu- 

tions * WILL LAMBERT, 

Chief Clerk House of Representatives. 

Senate Chamber, 
Austin, Texas, February 10, 1879. 
I hereby certify that the above and foregoing concurrent resolutions were 
adopted by the senate of the legislature of the State of Texas on the 15th day of 
January A. D. 1879 ; and that, in pursuance thereof, Senators E. R. Lane, Pey- 
ton F. Edwards, Marion Martin, Charles D. Grace, John S. Ford, A. W. Hous- 
ton, and L. J. Storey were appointed a committee on the part of the senate to 
carry out the provisions of said resolutions. ^ FIELDS, 

First Assistant Secretary of the Senate. 



The committee appointed in pursuance of the foregoing resolu- 
tions met the Congressional committee at Denison, and formally ten- 
dered to the wife of Mr. Schleicher a lot in the State cemetery at 
Austin, but she, with that tender and womanly instinct that clings to 
the object of its love even after death, preferred that his mortal 
remains should rest near her future home and amidst the people 
whose immediate Representative he had been, and by whom he had 
been so well known and so much beloved. 

On the banks of the beautiful San Antonio River, in the midst of 
a people whom he had so long and so bravely served, in a cemetery 
where lie buried many of the Republic's heroes who fell at the 
Alamo, he sleeps in honored rest. 

As I looked upon the great throng that stood reverently uncovered 
at his bier, I was forcibly reminded of the truthfulness and beauty of 
those lines of the poet : 

There is a tear for all who die, 
A mourner o'er the humblest grave, 

But nations swell the funeral cry 

And triumph weeps above the brave. 

Mr. Speaker, I would fain offer consolation to the bereaved widow 
and orphaned children of Gustave Schleicher. For the children 
thus left desolate I can only commend them to the care of Him who 
has promised to be a father to the fatherless. But for her who was 
the partner of his life, the wife of his bosom, what word of consola- 
tion can be given ? 

Go where the hunter's hand hath wrung 
From forest cave her shrieking young, 
And calm the lonely lioness, 
But mock not, soothe not her distress. 

In conclusion, may I not be permitted to say to the members of 
this House that, notwithstanding the great personal loss we have sus- 
tained, notwithstanding the fact that we are deprived of the advan- 
tage of Mr. Schleicher's great learning, his wisdom in counsel, and 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF GUSTAVE SCHLEICHER. 29 



his ability in debate, may we not find some degree of consolation in 
the eloquent words of Cicero when mourning over the death of the 
good Hortensius, when he exclaimed: "His end was not unfortu- 
nate, for he died mature in years and full of honors, and at a 
moment happy for his fame but unfortunate for his country." 



Address of ^VLr. pAt^FiELD, of pmo. 

Mr. Speaker : I stand with reverence in the presence of such a life 
and such a career as that of Gustave Schleicher. It illustrates 
more strikingly than almost any life I know the mystery that envelops 
that product which we call character, and which is the result of two 
sreat forces : the initial force which the Creator gave it when He 
called the man into being, and the force of all the external influences 
and culture that mold and modify the development of a life. 

In contemplating the first of these elements, no power of analysis 
can exhibit all the latent forces enfolded in the spirit of a new-born 
child, which derive their origin from the thoughts and deeds of remote 
ancestors, and, enveloped in the awful mystery of life, have been 
transmitted from generation to generation across forgotten centuries. 
Each new life is thus "the heir of all the ages." 

Applying these reflections to the character of Gustave Schleicher, 
it may be justly said that we have known few men in whose lives 
were concentrated so many of the deeply interesting elements that 
made him wttat he was. We are accustomed to say, and we have 
heard to-night, that he was born on foreign soil. In one sense that 
is true ; and yet in a very proper historic sense he was born in our 
Fatherland. One of the ablest of recent historians begins his open- 
ing volume with the declaration that England is not the fatherland 
of the English-speaking people; but the ancient home, the real father- 
land of our race, is the ancient forests of Germany. The same thought 
was suggested by Montesquieu long ago, when he declared in his 



30 ADDRESS OF MR. GARFIELD ON THE 



Spirit of Laws that the British constitution came out of the woods of 
Germany. 

To this day the Teutonic races maintain the same noble traits that 
Tacitus describes in his admirable history of the manners and char- 
acter of the Germans. We may therefore say that the friend whose 
memory we honor to-night is one of the elder brethren of our race. 
He came to America direct from our Fatherland, and not, like our 
own fathers, by the way of England. 

We who were born and have passed all our lives in this wide New 
World can hardly appreciate the influences that surrounded his early 
life. Born on the borders of that great forest of Germany, the Oden- 
wald, filled as it is with the memories and traditions of centuries, in 
which are mingled Scandinavian mythology, legends of the middle 
ages, romances of feudalism and chivalry, histories of barons and 
kings, and the struggles of a brave people for a better civilization; 
reared under the institutions of a strong semi-despotic government ; 
devoting his early life to personal culture, entering at an early age 
the University of Giessen, venerable with its two and a half centu- 
ries of existence, with a library of four hundred thousand volumes 
at his hand, with a great museum of the curiosities and mysteries of 
nature to study, he fed his eager spirit upon the rich culture which 
that Old World could give him, and at twenty-four years of age, in 
company with a band of thirty-seven young students, like himself 
cultivated, earnest, liberty-loving almost to the verge of communism — 
and who of us would not be communists in a despotism ? — he came to 
this country, attracted by one of the most wild and romantic pictures 
of American history, the picture of Texas as it existed near forty years 
ago ; the country discovered by La Salle at the end of his long and 
perilous voyages from Quebec to the northern lakes and from the 
lakes to the Gulf of Mexico; the country possessed alternately by 
the Spanish and the French and then by Mexico; the country made 
memorable by such names as Blair and Houston, Albert Sidney John- 



LIFE AND CI|^RACTER OF GUSTAVE SCHLEICHER. 31 



ston and Mirabeau Lamar, perhaps as adventurous and daring spirits 
as ever assembled on any spot of the earth; a country that achieved 
its freedom by heroism never surpassed, and which maintained its 
perilous independence for ten years, in spite of border enemies and 
European intrigues. 

It is said that a society was formed in Europe, embracing in its 
membership men of high rank, even members of royal families, for 
the purpose of colonizing the new republic of the Lone Star, and 
making it a dependency of Europe under their patronage ; but with- 
out sharing in their designs, some twenty thousand Germans found 
their way to the new republic, and among these young Schleicher 
came. 

The people of Texas had passed through a period as wild and 
exciting as the days of the Crusaders, and had just united their for- 
tunes to this Republic. How wide a world opened before these 
German students! They could hardly imagine how great was the 
nation of which they became citizens. Even the new State of their 
adoption was an empire in itself. I suppose few of us who have 
never visited that State can appreciate its imperial proportions. 
Vastly larger than the present Republic of France; larger than all 
our Atlantic States from the northern line of Pennsylvania to the 
southern boundary of Georgia ; as large as the six New England 
States, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and 
one-half of Indiana united, to such a State, with its measureless 
possibilities of development, young Schleicher came. 

It was a noble field for a bright, aspiring, liberty-loving scholar of 
the Old World in which to find ample scope for the fullest develop- 
ment of all his powers. 

The sketches we have already heard show with what zeal and suc- 
cess our friend made use of his advantages. His career as a member 
of this House has exhibited the best results of all these influences of 
nature and nurture. He has done justice to the scholarship which 



32 ADDRESS OF MR. GARFIELD ON THE 

Germany gave him, and the large and comprehensive ideas with 
which life in the New 'World inspired him. 

To exhibit with a little more fullness the origin of those decided 
opinions which Mr. Schleicher held on the great questions of 
finance, I venture to refer briefly to an interesting chapter in the 
history of Texas. It may be doubted whether in any part of the 
world life has been more intense and experience more varied than 
among the people of Texas. 

In the short space of ten years they had tried the whole range of 
financial experiments as fully as France had done in two hundred 
years. Every possible form of monetary theory that is recorded in 
history Texas had tried, for with that brave quick-thinking and quick- 
acting people to think was to resolve, and to resolve was to execute. 

They had tried a land-bank scheme as wild and magnificent as the 
land bank of John Law. They had tried the direct issue of treas- 
ury notes, and had seen them go down from par to half, to ten cents, 
to five cents, to two cents, to nothing on the dollar. They had tried 
"red-backs" of the republic, notes of corporate banks, scrip of pri- 
vate citizens, and worthless notes from banks of neighboring States, 
and had seen them all fail. Awakening from the dream of their 
experiments, under the leadership of clear-sighted men they put into 
their constitution, as they entered the Union, a provision that "in no 
case shall the legislature have power to issue treasury warrants, treas- 
ury notes, or paper of any description to circulate as money." More 
radical still, they decreed that " No corporate body shall be created, 
renewed, or extended with banking or discounting privileges," and 
" no person or persons within this State shall issue any bill, promis- 
sory note, or other paper to circulate as money." They put an end 
to all paper-money systems, and since then the majority of the peo- 
ple of that State have never looked with favor upon any other cur- 
rency than specie. 

With such traditions and influences among the people of his adop- 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF GUSTAVE SCHLEICHER. 33 

tion, and with a student life back of it, formed in the solid Old World 
ways of thinking, it is not wonderful that in all our financial discus- 
sions here we found Mr. Schleicher the sturdy supporter and able 
advocate of a currency based on coin of real value and full weight. 
I would say nothing that has even the appearance of controversy on 
this occasion. I mention these facts only to do justice to his memory. 

Of his character, as we knew it here, two things struck me as most 
notable. First, he possessed that quality without which no man ever 
did and I hope no man ever will achieve success in this forum — the 
habit of close, earnest, hard work. All his associates knew that when 
he rose to speak in this Hall it was because he had something to say, 
something that was the result of work, and that he said it because 
it came from the depth of his convictions, as the result of his fullest 
investigation. 

I stop to notice the fact that although he spoke with an accent 
brought from the Fatherland, he had that rare purity of language and 
style which I am inclined to believe that you and I, Mr. Speaker, will 
never achieve, and which few persons born on our soil can rival. We 
learned our language in the street; he came at once into the parlors 
of English, and learned it from the masters. His printed English 
was as pure as the purest which can be found in the records of our 
debates. 

He possessed and exhibited a noteworthy independence of char- 
acter. In this he taught a lesson which ought never to be forgotten 
here. His people trusted him, and by their approval enforced the 
lesson that the men who succeed best in public life are those who 
take the risk of standing by their own convictions. That principle 
never fails in the long run, for the people who send Representatives 
here do not want a mere echo, but a man who sees with his own 
eyes and fearlessly utters his own thoughts, as our friend did, with 
a boldness and courage that made him a worthy example to all 
American statesmen. 



5 sc 



I cannot conclude without asking the permission of the House to 
present a paper which has been handed to me to-day by Mr. Shade, 
the last manuscript which Mr. Schleicher penned. It was found in 
his sick-room by his family, and I have read it to-day with a feeling 
of veneration and admiration that few papers have ever awakened 
in my heart. It is a fragment — the introduction to a speech that he 
intended to deliver here upon the Indian question. It is only a few 
pages, but it exhibits a breadth of scholarship, a power of generaliza- 
tion and research, seldom seen in this Capitol. I ask permission to 
have printed in the Record this very interesting fragment of his last 
work in the service of his country. 

The following is the paper referred to by Mr. Garfield, prepared 
by Mr. Schleicher: 

A comparison of the settlement of the northern portion of the American conti- 
nent by the Teutonic races, if I can use the designation which applies to the largest 
part for the whole, and the settlement of the southern portion by the Spaniards, 
presents many very interesting features, both of resemblance and difference, which 
occur to the observant reader of history. Social features, political features of the 
different races of immigrants, some inherited from their ancestry and brought with 
them and nursed and cherished in their new homes, others developed by their 
new relations, the task before them of the conquest of new worlds and the forma- 
tion of new nationalities, carried out by each in its own characteristic way — all these 
are of absorbing interest for the student from their first appearance, through all 
stages of development, until we see before us the two great resultant parts ; on 
the one hand the United States of America and the kindred British Dominion of 
the Canadas, and on the other the vast family of nations of Mexico, the Central 
and South American Republics, and the Empire of Brazil. Varying within them- 
selves through many minor shades, yet the two groups appear, each one separate 
and distinct, strikingly different one from the other; and although known popularly 
as the Anglo-Saxon Americans and the Latin Americans, yet much further removed 
from each other and differing vastly more than the nations known by these famil- 
iar appellations in Europe. Perhaps no one characteristic feature in the develop- 
ments of the new nations — nay, perhaps not all others combined — have had as 
large a share in bringing about the great difference in the results attained by these 
two different classes of settlement as the difference in the mode of dealing with the 
native Indian populations. 

The Saxon mode of dealing with the Indians was always to get them out of their 
way — push them aside, by treaty, trade, agreement, or by force — and get the land 
clear for their own settlement. They colonized. Their society, large or small, was 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF GUSTAVE SCHLEICHER. 35 



complete in itself. They did their own fighting, their own preaching, their own 
governing, and their own working all within themselves ; they never absorbed the 
Indian into their society. They removed him as they removed or girdled the trees 
in the primeval forest to make room for their grain- fields, not from any hatred or 
hostility to them, but because they did not want them as an element of their own 
society. There was no theorizing about race in those practical people, yet they 
had the strong natural development of race- feeling and race-prejudice in a remark- 
able degree. It has its melancholy aspect to see an entire race of aborigines grad- 
ually dwindle away in a feeble struggle with a superior civilization, and the senti- 
mentalism of the sons has sometimes bewailed the rugged strength of the fathers 
while enjoying its fruits ; but the glorious result has been a homogeneous, power- 
ful people. 

The advancement of the human race is by the struggle for existence and by the 
survival of the fittest. That the lower races must drop by the wayside and give 
way to the stronger is essential to the progress of the whole. The weeds in the 
field and the grass of the prairie are individual organisms, with the same right of 
existence, all but their usefulness to man, as the wheat-plant and the fruit-tree, 
but on the cultivated field the farmer destroys the life of the weed that the grain- 
bearing plant may live, and' plows up the grass by the roots in order that the 
full strength of the orchard plat may be diverted to the development of the fruit- 
tree. The intelligent breeder of the noble horse and the useful cow or sheep never 
permits thj lower and weaker individuals or classes to enter into the breeding of 
the fine herds, in which human intelligence has aided the selection of nature in 
producing the highest excellence of their kind. Thus what is called by feeble 
sentiment prejudice of race is the true guarantee for the advancement of mankind. 
Circumstances favored the separate development of the Teutonic settlers. Not 
only were they averse to absorbing any strange element into their society, even for 
the purpose of obtaining their labor, but the Indians whom they found in posses- 
sion of the soil were a warlike race, who preferred war to the death to submission 
to domestic labor. It is a remarkable fact that the Northern Indians have never 
yielded to servile labor. In countries where man comes in contact only with the 
tiger, the panther, and the wolf, it would not prove his lower degree of intelligence 
that he cannot make animals subservient to his domestic uses when other more 
fortunate human beings found the docile horse, the patient steer, or the obedient ' 
dog, which readily submitted to be the useful servants of their human master. 
Thus the independent development of the Saxon settler was aided by the haughty 
spirit of the independent Indian, who would no more bow to servile labor than the 
tiger would submit to working in harness. 

The North American Indian cannot in his civilization be compared to any living 
race in Europe or Asia. He seems to occupy the degree in civilization which was 
held by man in the so-called stone age. Where he had not acquired the products 
of the civilization of the white man, his weapons and implements were of flint, the 
same arrow-heads and stone hatchets which are now found in Europe as remnants 
of the stone age. They sometimes hammered copper and other metal when it was 
found in a pure malleable condition ; they never smelted any metal. They did not 



$6 ADDRESS OF MR. GARFIELD ON THE 



use bronze or iron. They did not use the milk, butter, or cheese of animals, but 
only the meat. To this day the only use the wild tribes of Indians know to make 
of a cow is to kill her, eat the flesh, and use the hide. Their sole pursuits were the 
chase and war. Bravery, endurance, cunning in stratagem, were their highest 
virtues. To this day the young Sioux who asks admission to the dignity of a war- 
rior has to pass through a series of self-imposed cruel tortures, mutilating his own 
body while he smiles at his suffering. War was their sole ambition and their only 
means of distinction, and all labor was left to the woman as unworthy of a man. 
With such a people confronting them, fierce and untamable, no temptation was 
held out to the Teutonic or Anglo-Saxon settler to absorb them as domestic serv- 
ants. The sturdy independence, the prejudice of race, and contemptuous aversion 
for beings of a different order were met with an equal independence, with undaunted, 
fierce, and cruel hostility, and with undying and revengeful hatred. 

Thus a homogeneous people grew up under the most favorable circumstances. 
Their intact and pure development continued to attract to them immigrants from 
their kindred races in Europe, so that what with their own strong development and 
the continued additions of homogeneous immigrants to their number their increase 
in numbers and power is far superior to anything in history. The only disturbing 
element has been the introduction of negroes as laborers, of which I will say more 
hereafter. 

Far different was the development in the countries acquired by the Latin races. 
The Spaniards went not as settlers or colonists, but as conquerors. They subju- 
gated the native races wherever they found them and absorbed them into the new 
society they were forming as useful laborers. Like the feudal conquerors in Europe, 
as the Franks in conquering Gaul, the Goths in conquering Italy and Spain, became 
the large landed aristocracy by right of the sword, but left the peasantry of the 
conquered nation to be their serfs and laborers ; so the Spaniards, by the system of 
repartimientos in Mexico, Peru, and other conquered countries, divided land and 
Indians among the conquistadores. There is a strange similarity in this respect 
between the conquest of the Latin countries by the wandering warrior nations of 
Germany in the fourth and fifth centuries in Europe and the Spanish conquests in 
America on one side, and the Anglo-Saxon conquest of England and the Anglo- 
S;i\<m settlement of North America on the other. The causes and circumstances 
were widely different, but there is a similarity of result. The conquerors of Italy, 
Gaul, and Spain found in the Roman countries which they overran a civilization 
far superior to their own. Their military prowess and savage strength were the 
only qualities in which they excelled the people they conquered. In all elements 
of civilization they were vastly inferior to the subdued people. The result was 
that they adopted the laws, the language, and the civilization of the vanquished, 
and, while they became the military aristocracy, disappeared in the nationality of 
the resident population. They were not so very different in race from the descend- 
ants of Indo-Germans. In England alone the conquering immigrants from die 
northern coast country of Germany found a people inferior to them, not only in 
martial qualities but inferior in civilization. The result was that they colonized 
the country with their own people. From about the year 450, for more than two 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF GUSTAVE SCHLEICHER. 37 



centuries, they waged a war of extermination against the Britons, until the poor 
remnants of the aboriginal people found refuge only in the mountains of Wales and 
the highlands of Scotland, while the Saxon occupied all the rest of England and 
the Scotch lowlands, retaining their language, their laws, and their old customs 
and habits. Of the British language only the geographical names remained, the 
same as the Indian geographical appellations have been retained in North America. 
The Spaniards found no civilization equal to their own in America, and retained 
the laws, the language, and customs of Spain. But they made the Indian popula- 
tion an essential and permanent part of their society, and an element, too, in point 
of numbers far stronger than they were themselves. This was the fatal weight 
with which they loaded their strong nationality and which has dragged it down ever 
since. 



Address of ^AIr. ^VLills, of Texas. 

Since the assembling of the present Congress seven of our col- 
leagues have finished their labors and gone to rest. Welch sleeps 
far towards the sunset on the western plains j Williams by the north- 
western lake shore ; Quinn on the banks of the Hudson j Leonard 
on the Delaware; Douglas on the Pamunky; Hartridge on the 
Savannah ; and Schleicher by the rapid running waters of the San 
Antonio. Almost the entire area of the Republic, from East to West 
and from North to South, lies within the boundary marked by their 
graves. The great distance at which they repose each from the 
other reminds us how vast is the extent of the country of which they 
were fellow-citizens, and for the government of which they had been 
chosen as Representatives. 

The different opinions they entertained, whether of the creeds of 
church or the policies of State, show how broad and catholic is the 
spirit of liberty that is nourished and grown by the liberal institu- 
tions under which we live. In the discharge of duty to country as 
each in the light of conscience saw and determined for himself, their 
paths sometimes in peace ran smoothly side by side, and at others 
converged and closed in sharp encounter, but to-day after life's fitful 
fever they sleep well. The conflict is ended, all differences are 



38 ADDRESS OF MR. MILLS ON THE 

reconciled, and the voice of contention is hushed in the silent halls 
whither they have gone to rest from their labors. The angel of 
Death has touched and stilled the speaking lip, and in the white 
alphabet of Heaven has written upon each forehead, " Peace." They 
have laid their armor by, and, bowing their heads upon the bosom 
of a common mother, they have locked their arms in the embrace of 
an everlasting friendship. They are citizens of that republic that lies 
beyond the river of the chilling waters, where power has no purple, 
the church no heretics, wealth no palaces, and penury no pains. 

The wise man has said that the day of one's death is better than 
the day of his birth, and the patient man hath said his life is of few 
days and full of trouble. His entrance into life brings him upon a 
stage where he must act his part according to the gifts with which 
nature has endowed him. His brief span is filled with anxious cor- 
roding cares, with griefs and disappointments, pain and suffering. 
When the play is ended, the curtain dropped, and the lights extin- 
guished, he retires to his chamber, lies down upon his couch, and 
pillows his weary head to pleasant dreams. If in the part he has 
performed he has taught his fellow-man the pathway of the just, his 
life has been a bright and a shining light. If endowed with abilities 
that have lifted him to high public station, and he has faithfully 
labored to promote the welfare and increase the happiness of his fel- 
low-creatures, his life has been to them the shadow of a great rock 
in a weary land. If fortune has allotted him the humble walk of 
obscurity, yet he has given to his suffering fellow-man a sigh, and it 
were all he had to give, his life has not been lived in vain. 

Twenty years ago my colleagues from the second and third dis- 
trict and myself served in the same legislature with the deceased. 
He was there, as he was here, a faithful, hard-working representa- 
tive. He was then, as he was ever afterward, struggling for the 
amelioration of the condition of our western border. In that work 
he was thoroughly in earnest. It began, continued, and ended with 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF GUSTAVE SCHLEICHER. 39 

his public life. With the people of the frontier he had spent the 
best days of his life. He knew them well. He thoroughly under- 
stood their unhappy condition and did all he could to alleviate their 
sufferings. They reposed in him at all times their unbounded confi- 
dence, and that confidence no act of his ever moved or poisoned 
with a doubt. When chosen by his fellow-citizens to represent 
them here he came with two subjects earnestly impressed upon his 
mind — the protection of the western border by the adoption of a 
firm and determined policy, and the solution of our financial troubles 
by a speedy return to specie payments. To these he gave all his 
attention, and labored with unflagging energy to accomplish his 
desired objects. 

Whether his views of the proper treatment of these subjects were 
wise or otherwise, he honestly entertained them and earnestly pur- 
sued them. He lived to see the border attain a measure of relief 
from its persecutions and mainly through his persistent and untiring 
labors. He lived to see the resumption of specie payments, and on 
that fatal day received the injury that resulted in his death. Deeply 
as we deplore his loss, our grief would find some solace if we could 
know that day had brought sorrows to no other household in the 
land. 

Sir Francis Bacon has said that reading makes a full man, writing 
an exact man, and thinking a profound man, and his philosophy 
found ample verification in Gustave Schleicher. He was always 
a hard student. He read many books and the best of books. His 
mind was well stored with the knowledge derived from the experi- 
ence of others. He wrote much and wrote well, and few men wield 
the pen with greater force than he did. His strength resulted from 
the fact that he never attempted to write or speak on any subject 
till he had weighed and digested it well in his own mind, and when 
he entered the lists to champion a cause he was no mean adversary 
for any opponent. He was not a master of elocution, and under- 



4-0 ADDRESS OF MR. MILLS ON THE 

stood little or nothing of the graces of oratory, yet he always 
presented his subject clearly, fortified it by sound reasons, and im- 
pressed it with earnestness and force. He was sometimes humor- 
ous, never witty, but always intelligent. He was earnest, but never 
violent. No depth of conviction or fervor of feeling could so far 
overmaster him as to make him discourteous to any one who might 
entertain opposing opinions. His own opinions, which were formed 
after mature deliberation and thorough investigation, he maintained 
with great stubbornness. 

Strong as were his convictions and irresistible as appeared to him 
the logic that led him to them, yet he was tolerant of the opinions 
of others, and treated all opponents with a courtesy and kindness 
that were as large as his own physical stature. His disposition was 
naturally kind and amiable. In conflicts where the collisions of others 
were sharp and jagged, giving and receiving blows that left wounds 
rankling with pain and bitterness, he would glide smoothly through, 
leaving no sting in any bosom, and yet steadily maintain his own 
position. His mind was well disciplined, and whatever of temper 
he had was held under perfect subjection to his will. In the board- 
ing-house life to which the poorer members of Congress with their 
families are doomed we are sometimes thrown together and learn 
much of the domestic life of our neighbor that would otherwise 
remain a sealed book to us. 

When he first entered Congress we procured apartments for our 
families in the same house, only a narrow hall dividing us. I have 
often seen him at his desk, with his manuscripts and open books 
around him on the table, the chairs, and the floor, with his little 
children about his feet and sometimes playing sad havoc with his 
work; but I never saw the least exhibition of temper or heard a 
sharp word from his lips. To a man whose mind is engaged in deep 
study, buried with books and thoughts, such an intrusion would in 
most cases overturn one's patience as well as his plans and papers. 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF GUSTAVE SCHLEICHER. 



41 



But it was not so with him. His power of continuity was suffi- 
ciently strong when he seized a thought to hold it like a slave till he 
had examined it in all its aspects and laid it away, and when he 
desired it again he knew precisely where he left it and where to find 
it. He had only to command, and it came as the willing vassal of a 
well-disciplined mind. Like most men whose lives have been spent 
with books and study and in public service, he gathered but little of 
the goods of this world around him. The toil of his half century 
was expended for others, and its fruits, whatever they are, are left 
to the enjoyment of others. To his wife and children he has left 
only the name of the husband and father. Falling in the very midst 
of life's battle, he is buried, like Socrates, at the public expense. 

That great State, great in the extent of its territory, in its history, 
its resources, and the 'number and character of its people, found in 
him a son well adapted to fill the measure of a representative of all 
the varied elements of her greatness and power. To his remains 
passing through her territory from north to south and east to west 
she has shown every mark of distinction, paid every tribute of 
respect, and the incense of gratitude and affection arose from the 
grief-stricken hearts of her people as his ashes moved through their 
midst to their last resting-place. He sleeps on a spot dear to every 
Texan, a spot where their fathers built their first altars and offered 
their first sacrifices for political and religious liberty. 

A grateful mother, whom he served so long, so faithfully, and so 
well, may point to the mound where his ashes are inurned and say 
to all her children, as David said over the dead body of Abner, 
"Know ye not that there is a prince and a great man fallen this day 
in Israel?" 



6 sc 



42 ADDRESS OF MR. HARRIS ON THE 



_^DDRESS OF J&R. j-lARRIS, OF ^MASSACHUSETTS. 

Mr. Speaker: I rise to pay a brief but heartfelt tribute to the 
memory of our late friend and associate to whose memorial service 
this hour has been set apart. It was not my good fortune to know 
Mr. Schleicher intimately. I met him but few times out of this 
hall, and therefore I cannot speak of his private life or character. 
I however formed a very high opinion of him as a man from what I 
saw of him here. I believed him to be of pure and stainless pri- 
vate life and habits, of great integrity, and unblemished honor. 

Of his public character and actions I can speak without doubt or 
hesitation. Here he was able, painstaking, and faithful, and gave 
unmistakable evidence of severe labor and untiring industry. And 
above all else be it said that he was thoroughly sincere and honest, 
and independent and manly in defense of what seemed to him to be 
just and honest. Party allegiance, which so often binds and fetters 
the judgments of the best among us, was forgotten by him when 
truth, justice, and honesty, as he saw them, were at stake; and prob- 
ably no member of this body voted more frequently independent of 
party considerations than did our deceased friend. 

His aim was to do right in all things, and he did not forget, as is 
sometimes the case, I fear, that that which is not right in itself is 
wrong even in politics. He was in full and hearty sympathy with 
every movement tending to bind and cement this Union, to heal up 
the wounds made by war, develop its resources, or increase the gen- 
eral prosperity. 

To his own State he was loyal and devoted, and for his services 
rendered in securing her interest and highest welfare he is entitled 
to the lasting gratitude of her people. But he did not forget that he 
was a citizen of the Republic and under its protection and subject to 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF GUSTAVE SCHLEICHER. 43 



its Constitution and laws, and that to the Republic he owed the best 
efforts of his mind and the homage of his warm and generous heart. 
He was in public as in private life— an honest man, and this is the 
highest eulogy which can be pronounced. If only such as he were 
intrusted with power in this country, this Union would last forever, 
and public life would be as it should be, the model and best example 
for the life of the citizen. 

Mr. Speaker, we can often judge of the virtues and usefulness of 
a public man as much by the opinions of his immediate neighbors and 
friends, those who see him only with the harness of public care 
thrown off, as by examination of his official record. There he is 
known as he really is; his motives and ambitions are all known, and 
disguise is laid aside. I had the fortune to be designated as a mem- 
ber of the committee of this House which accompanied the remains 
of Mr. Schleicher to the city of San Antonio. I had ample oppor- 
tunity to discover in what esteem he was held by the people of Texas 
of all classes, creeds, and of whatever political faith. From the 
moment we entered the State of Texas from the north to the time 
we laid his remains in their final resting-place in the National Ceme- 
tery at San Antonio our progress was that of a vast funeral proces- 
sion. 

The legislature of the State sent a delegation of its distinguished 
members to meet us and escort the remains to their final resting- 
place. At Dallas and at Houston and at other places on the way 
our passage was delayed for longer or shorter periods, sometimes 
four hours, out of respect to the feelings and wishes of the people 
who came thronging to pay their last respects to the memory of 
their honest and devoted servant. He represented, to be sure, a con- 
stituency and a section hundred of miles away in the remote confines 
of their almost limitless State, and yet they knew him, loved him, 
and wept at his bier. 

Long processions moved in silence through his funeral car, which 



44 



ADDRESS OF MR. HARRIS ON THE 



the liberality of the State, the railroad companies, and individuals 
had provided to receive the remains at the State line, and which was 
a bower of green adorned with living, growing plants and rare flow- 
ers. At Houston for hours the procession moved on, and there were 
thousands who did not gain admittance. It was noticeable that the 
people who like himself had left their German homes and given up 
allegiance to the Fatherland, tempted by the promises of liberty and 
new homes in the young republic, were the first to drop a tear over 
his remains. But they came not alone. There were the people 
from other lands — the men and women from every quarter of the 
Union — all races were represented. White and black alike joined 
in the procession and walked side by side. I saw the starting tear 
glistening in the eye of many a colored man and woman. I saw 
that the freed bondman dared to trust Gustave Schleicher with 
his rights and liberties, relied upon his truth, honor, and love of jus- 
tice with no faltering confidence, and that in his death he felt he had 
lost a true friend. 

At San Antonio, that beautiful old city in which he for so many 
years had his home, the people with one accord came to do him 
honor. The scene at his obsequies was imposing and beautiful, but 
sorrowful and most touching. The authorities of the United States, 
the State, and the city had joined in their efforts to make the occa- 
sion memorable and worthy of the man whose memory they sought 
to honor. Nothing was omitted which could give dignity or grace 
to the ceremonies. Though elaborate and costly, there was no 
meaningless decorations. The ceremonies were grand and solemn, 
yet simple and in the most perfect good taste. The religious service 
at the church and at the grave were in all respects worthy of the 
deceased. The people who stood silent and uncovered by the way- 
side, joined in the long procession, and gathered at the cemetery 
where the remains were laid, formed an immense throng. People of 
all nationalities were there; the Mexican, the Spaniard, the Indian, 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF GUSTAVE SCHLEICHER. 45 

the Japanese, and the man of color joined harmoniously with the 
native American population in doing honor to the deceased states- 
man. No sadder spectacle was ever witnessed in any city. It was a 
Sabbath day of mourning and true sorrow. The shadow of a great 
calamity seemed to darken every face. From that vast and mis- 
cellaneous throng there was not heard one ribald word or one 
discordant sound. 

The people on that day testified by their unfeigned sorrow to the 
virtue and worth of their deceased statesman. No man receives 
such homage who has not in his life been faithful, just, and honest. 

He sleeps in the National Cemetery which overlooks from a gentle 
eminence the beautiful city. It is most fitting that the nation which 
adopted and honored him, and which he has served with integrity 
and zeal, should receive his remains into her keeping and guard them 
forever. He sleeps in the cemetery which the nation has provided 
for those who have died in her service. We left him there in his 
honorable and honored grave with the flag of his adopted country 
waving peacefully and proudly above him, and may he sleep peace- 
fully forever, thus attended and thus honored. 

Gcstave Schleicher to us is dead, and returns to dust from 
whence he came ; but — 

Dust thou art, to dust returnest, 
Was not spoken of the soul. 

The pure spirit of our departed friend and brother has, let us trust 
and believe, found welcome from kindred spirits in a better world 
than this. While we say "peace to his ashes," let us put up the 
prayer that his released soul may have joyous and blessed existence 
in heaven forever. 



46 ADDRESS OF MR. MULLER ON THE 



Address of ^VIr. Muller, of New York. 

Mr. Speaker: In the death of Gustave Schleicher we who 
served with him on the Committee on Railways and Canals and en- 
joyed with him the freedom of social intimacy suffer a deep personal 
loss. Texas is deprived of the services of one who has helped to 
build up her waste places. The country especially misses the wise 
law-maker. Nor should the city of New York be voiceless in these 
memorial services. She feels sensitively as the commercial center of 
the Union every event for weal or woe — rejoicing when agricultural, 
manufacturing, and commercial industries thrive and prosper, and sor- 
rowing when they languish and are distressed. Naturally, therefore, 
she hails the advent in the public councils of men whose lofty natures 
and broad minds seek eagerly the general welfare. Such a man was 
Mr. Schleicher. We have witnessed the zeal and success with 
which he advocated the interests of his immediate constituents upon 
a remote frontier, and we have also witnessed the unflagging enthusi- 
asm with which he sustained measures of trade and commerce and 
finance, fraught as he believed with blessings for all. 

He symbolized the wealth that European immigration has poured 
upon our shores. When he left his Fatherland to cast his fortunes 
with us, he came like most of his countrymen, fully equipped. He 
brought with him not only brains and muscle and energy, but edu- 
cation of a high character. Here he built his home, here married, 
and here grew up his children. Frugal, temperate, industrous, the 
German settlers erected in the Southwest flourishing and happy civ- 
ilized communities. In him they found a counselor and friend. 
Others may live in history as the destroyers of cities ; he has the 
greater honor of having founded them. 

He was educated in the exact sciences. His profession was that 
of civil engineer. Before coming into political life he was a success- 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF GUSTAVE SCHLEICHER. 47 



ful journalist. He was cautious. He always sought full and accu- 
rate information. Though slow in taking his ground, his conviction 
when once formed was fearlessly defended. Of this his recent canvass 
for re-election is proof. When know-nothingism became all-power- 
ful in the United States, and proscribed men because of their religion 
or place of birth, he waged deadly war against it, and so far as Texas 
is concerned he destroyed the monster forever. 

Fixed and unbending as he was in what he believed to be right, 
there was no man more suave and agreeable or less dogmatic. His 
heart was open as the day. 

As one of the committee appointed to accompany the remains to 
San Antonio, I saw how deeply he was loved and how all-pervading 
was the grief for his loss. 

He gave the promise'of many years of life. He had grown stead- 
ily in the public esteem. His power for usefulness was greater than 
ever before. Yet, freighted as he was with the rich hopes of his State, 
he has suddenly passed away. His life has not been in vain. Even 
though his sun has gone down it has left a bright glow upon the 
horizon. His sterling integrity, lofty patriotism, noble aims, true 
heart, will long be remembered by those who knew him. 



^DDRESS OF yW.R. JuCKER, OF VIRGINIA. 

Mr. Speaker : It would be vain repetition for me to attempt an 
analysis of the character of our late distinguished fellow-member, 
which has been so beautifully and critically deliniatcd by his friends 
who have preceded me; but I may be pardoned for adverting to one 
or two points in the career of our lamented friend to which no one 
has yet alluded. 

In the life of Mr. Schleicher and in his representative relations 
two fundamental and prominent points in our American polity were 
conspicuously illustrated. I mean the doctrine of expatriation, by 



48 ADDRESS OF MR. TUCKER ON THE 



which the tie of native allegiance to the mother country is loosed 
and an alien is admitted into the fold of our American brotherhood ; 
and that other principle by which a foreign state, formed out of ter- 
ritory no part of the domain of our common Union, or of any State 
of the Union, is admitted into the family, the confederate family of 
our American States. 

The principle of naturalization, ingrafted in our Constitution by 
our fathers, admitted Mr. Schleicher to citizenship in the United 
States ; and the principle by which new States may be admitted into 
the Union brought the Lone Star State of Texas into the American 
family in 1845. 

It may not be out of place for me to say that perhaps the most 
momentous event in American history was the admission of Texas 
into the Union. The fruit of it has been the founding of that great 
Pacific empire which has done so wonderful a part in furnishing a 
currency for the world, and which has opened the. gates of American 
commerce with Asiatic civilization. And at the same time perhaps 
it may be said that it was productive of the unhappy civil war which 
convulsed this Union to its center. I am old enough, Mr. Speaker, 
to remember the circumstances of the admission of Texas into the 
Union. I remember the character of the discussions that were had 
as to the constitutionality of that act. It is rather an interesting 
point in our American history that a Northeastern State, the State of 
Vermont, was a lone star during the whole period of the American 
Revolution, no member of the American Confederacy, and was ad- 
mitted into the Union not as a part of any other State, nor as formed 
out of the common territory of the United States. In the debates in 
the Federal convention it appears that the clause in the Constitution 
for the admission of new States into the Union was regarded as suffi- 
cient for the admission of Vermont as a free, independent, and sov- 
ereign State, without requiring the consent of any State that had laid 
claim to her territory. This great precedent in our history was the 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF GUSTAVE SCHLEICHER. 49 



foundation of the claim for the admission of Texas into the Union, 
the Lone Star of the Southwest. 

She came into the Union in December, 1845, as an independent 
State. She had won her independence by war. The ghosts of the 
martyred heroes of the Alamo had been avenged on the plains of San 
Jacinto and for nine years her nationality had been recognized by the 
United States. The war with Mexico broke out in 1846. In the year 
1847, while the Lone Star State and the whole Union were convulsed 
with that war which ended in the triumph of American arms and the 
floating of our flag over the halls of the Montezumas, Gustave 
Schleicher, with a band of brothers from the old Fatherland, cast in his 
lot with the people of Texas and became a citizen of the United States. 
I cannot but think, Mr. Speaker, that in the mind of Mr. Schlei- 
cher there were two ideas, generated by his relations to his native 
and adopted countries, which were in conflict. He no doubt came 
from the Fatherland with the dream of German unification which has 
been recently realized by its greatest statesman, Bismarck. But he 
came to a State which had severed her confederate allegiance with 
the Mexican union and by an act of secession had declared herself 
an independent Commonwealth, and then by an act of her own voli- 
tion had become a member of the American Union. 

I have no doubt that the feeling of Mr. Schleicher, as I under- 
stand it manifested itself in the early part of our civil strife, was that 
of a Union man ; but as a citizen of the State of Texas, whose advent 
into the Union had been marked by those events to which I have 
adverted, he could not but feel that his allegiance was due to her. 
He was faithful to her during the whole period of the late war, serv- 
ing as a civil engineer in the army of the Confederate States, and 
doing his whole duty as a citizen of the Confederacy. When the war 
was over he turned again to the avocations of civil life, and as a 
Representative from the State of Texas in the Forty-fourth and Forty- 
fifth Congresses his record is before us. 



7 sc 



5° ADDRESS OF MR. KELLEY ON THE 



^DDRESS OF yVlR. JCeLLEY, OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

Mr. Speaker : Gustave Schleicher was no ordinary man, or one 
in reciting whose merits it is necessary that defects of character or 
habit must be concealed or glossed over, and I avail myself of this 
occasion for the purpose of recording my estimate of his character 
and Congressional labors, and of saying, as I do in the coldest can- 
dor, that in his death his immediate constituents, the State he repre- 
sented, and the country at large sustained a great loss. 

The natural gifts of Mr. Schleicher were great. The collegiate 
training he had received at the University of Giessen and his subse- 
quent experience as civil engineer in the construction of railroads in 
his native country had so expanded and disciplined his powers that 
when in 1 847 he emigrated to Texas he brought to that young State 
the best gift that man could bring, a vigorous frame, a large mind, 
high culture, thorough intellectual discipline, and a manhood which 
he proposed to devote to her interests under his highest convictions 
of right, truth, and duty, from which he seems never to have found 
it expedient to swerve. 

Few men who had served so brief a period in Congress as the Dis- 
poser of events permitted him to do, have left in the permanent re- 
sults of their Congressional labors such evidence of remarkable capa- 
bilities, disciplined by schools and expanded by experiences, primarily 
in the midst of dense population in which high culture prevailed, and 
subsequently in the wilderness and upon the border-land of two re- 
publics, many of whose frontiersmen found pleasure and profit in 
deeds of lawlessness. 

That one whose nature was so full of gentleness, should have cast 
his lot with such a community, was, from the time I came to know 
Mr. Schleicher well, to me a constant source of wonder. To him, 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF GU STAVE SCHLEICHER. 



however, as it involved the performance of great duties it was a 
source of happiness, and his devotion to the State of his adoption 
was absolute. 

I will not attempt to portray his character, but will illustrate it in 
his own language. On the financial question we differed widely ; 
indeed, in the whole range of discussion involved in that complex 
question there was but one point on which we agreed, which was the 
inexpediency and dishonesty of contracting, by arbitrary means, a 
volume of currency to which prices had adjusted themselves. On 
this point we were in perfect accord ; but on all others our differ- 
ences seemed to be fundamental. Yet, in my intercourse with him 
on this grave question I ever found him as tolerant of the convic- 
tions of those who differed from him as he was firm in the mainte- 
nance of his own. Toward but one class of disputants on this or 
any important subject did he manifest impatience— an impatience 
springing from contempt— for he could not tolerate those who would 
legislate on far-reaching questions without reference to the wisdom of 
their votes, but in the hope of conciliating popular favor. Thus, in 
opening his speech on the resumption of specie payments, on the 28th 
of January, 1876, Mr. Schleicher said: 

It would have best accorded with my personal preferences to have found in the 
House the sign of a well-defined financial policy, which would agree with my gen- 
eral convictions of what the country needs and demands, and to have followed a 
lead in that direction. But it seems to me that our path for the future in that re- 
spect is still in the dark, lighted only by eternal truth and the teachings of experi- 
ence. I have come to the conclusion that my duty, like that of every Representa- 
tive in a time like this, is an earnest, devoted adherence to truth and honesty, and 
complete and unreserved loyalty to the convictions of right which I have formed 
from the lights before me. No good, at this time, can come from the politician's 
reasoning to find out the drift of popular will, and take the course which seems to 
lead to the people's favor. Public opinion itself is not formed, and the course 
which might to-day seem to lead to popular approval may to-morrow be found to 
lead away from it. No time-serving views will now answer. A firm determination 
to do right, to follow a conviction arrived at after earnest and laborious searching, 
cannot be wrong. The people mean to be honest and right ; this is the fundamen- 
tal idea of my political faith. 



'V 



52 ADDRESS OF MR. XELLEY ON THE 

That speech is in itself a monument to his industry, his acuteness, 
and breadth of research, and his stern integrity. Dissenting from 
its teachings as I do, I commend it to those who agree with its con- 
clusions as a store-house of argument and illustration. 

Mr. Schleicher is understood to have been the author of the re- 
port made April 25, 1878, by the Committee on Foreign Affairs on 
the relations of the United States with Mexico. That it was his work 
there is no room for doubt, as it abounds in evidence of his fondness 
for research, his clearness of statement, and of his devotion to the peo- 
ple among whom he chose to pass his life. He who would learn 
something of the dangers and, I may say, the terrible fascinations of 
such border life as the Texan settlers upon the Rio Grande have 
known, will nowhere find them more vividly presented than in Mr. 
Schleicher's report to which I refer. 

So, too, in his report of June 7, 1878, from the same committee, he 
recorded with clearness the history of the Japanese indemnity fund. 
No fact that touched the merits of the case seems to have been too 
minute to merit his consideration, nor did the amount of labor re- 
quired to acquire and present all the facts touching any bearing of 
the question bid him pause; and he who would know the history of 
the Japanese indemnity fund may find it all in that brief report. 

Mr. Schleicher, during our intestine struggle, was true to his 
adopted State and the Confederacy, with which she cast her lot; but 
when the war ceased he accepted the result and came among us with 
a brave determination to do what in him lay toward restoring har- 
mony between the people of the two sections of the country, and 
thus hastening the restoration of the waste places of the South. On 
political subjects his words were always as conciliatory as they were 
manly and frank ; and when I heard of his death I grieved as for one 
in whose departure my country had sustained a great loss. 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF GUSTAVE SCHLEICHER. 53 



Address of Mr, Throckmorton, of Texas. 

Mr. Speaker : During the present short session of our body death 
has been unprecedentedly busy among the people's Representatives. 
Again and again this House has heen called to mourn the loss of 
one and another of its members, summoned from the scenes and 
duties of earth to that eternity whither we are all hastening.' 

The dread messenger which waits Once upon each and every indi- 
vidual without respect to person or position has recently visited our 
delegation and robbed Texas of one of her wisest and worthiest 
Representatives. 

No one is better enabled by more than a quarter of a century of 
intimate personal and political acquaintance to bear testimony to the 
moral and intellectual worth of my deceased colleague's character 
than myself, and certainly no one more thoroughly realizes than I 
do the loss which my State and the country at large has sustained 
in his death. I esteem it a melancholy privilege to put upon record 
a slight tribute to the character and memory of a good man and 
wise legislator gone from our midst forever. 

Gustave Schleicher, whose death we to-day commemorate, 
was, as you have heard, of German birth and parentage, and at the 
university where he was educated his decided mathematical talent 
received thorough development and cultivation. 

Pursuing this natural bent of his genius he first chose civil engi- 
neering as a profession, and was engaged, before he left his father- 
land, in the construction of several railroads. 

Early realizing, however, that America afforded a wider field for 
useful operation and a greater scope for honorable ambition than 
did the Old World, besides offering surer and swifter rewards to 
energy and industry judiciously applied, he determined to emigrate, 
and came to Texas when the State had been but recently admitted 
to the Federal Union, and when he himself was only twenty-four 



54 ADDRESS OF MR. THROCKMORTON ON THE 

years of age. From that date to the time of his death his history 
forms part of the history of the State. 

To the capacity for profound reflection he joined habits of close 
observation, and soon understood the spirit of the laws and acquired 
the language of his adopted country, always presenting his well- 
considered thoughts in terse and idiomatic English. 

After passing three years in different portions of the State, he 
finally located at San Antonio, in 1850, and within another three 
years his solid sense and great moral worth had become so well 
known and so justly appreciated that he was elected, by the popular 
vote, to represent the people of that section first in the lower house 
and afterward in the senate. I served with him in both branches of 
the legislature, and there learned to know and to value the native 
strength of his mind, the sturdy independence and unflinching integ- 
rity of his character, and the ripe scholarship of his attainments. 
Succeeding years of association have only served to verify the high 
estimate I then made of his character and qualifications. 

Prone to investigation and gifted in an eminent degree with the 
power of correct analysis, he thoroughly studied every question that 
presented itself for his consideration and conscientiously sought the 
right solution of it by the light of experience and of reason, and 
when he thought he had found it he stood by his convictions with a 
firmness that never faltered, even when those convictions proved 
contrary, as they sometimes did, to the sentiment of his constituents. 
This demonstrates Gustave Schleicher to have been no mere 
politician, seeking popular favor by a facile yielding of principle at 
every variation of public opinion. 

In point of fact he possessed many of the distinctive character- 
istics of a statesman. Cautious in forming his opinions and slow in 
arriving at conclusions, when satisfied of their correctness he yet was 
bold in their promulgation and persistent in their maintenance. His 
patriotism was not of that merely local growth and nurture which is 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF GUSTAVE SCHLEICHER. 55 

circumscribed by State lines or sectional bounds, but was as broad 
and comprehensive as the nation. While endeavoring by observa- 
tion and reflection to see and to comprehend the true interest of his 
section, and while mindful and jealous of the interest of his imme- 
diate constituency, he looked beyond it to the general good, and 
ever labored for the welfare of the whole country. 

The district which he represented, bordering, as it does, upon a 
jealous, lawless, and practically hostile nation, which is either unable 
or unwilling to prevent or to punish the depredations of its citizens 
offending within our territory, is exposed to constant invasion and to 
loss both of life and property. No one understood better than Mr. 
Schleicher the necessity for protection by the general government 
to that exposed and suffering frontier, and no one was more fearless 
and untiring in representing the wrongs of that region or more com- 
petent to point out the remedy. In him the pioneers of Texas and 
the border of every frontier State and Territory have lost a judicious 
friend and an able promoter of all their interests. 

He was a life-long, earnest advocate of internal improvement, and 
while a member of the State legislature was a zealous friend of 
State patronage in behalf of railroads, and afterward in the National 
Legislature he favored a liberal policy on the part of the general 
government in support of feasible schemes for extending iron thor- 
oughfares of travel and trade across the country, with ramifications 
to the remote borders of the country, fully realizing that such modes 
of rapid, easy, and constant communication between the widely 
separated portions of our extensive territory would tend to the pro- 
motion of a just equilibrium by keeping up a brisk and healthful 
circulation, and to the mitigation of a narrow sectionalism by afford- 
ing opportunity for free intercourse and personal contact. 

The very fact that Mr. Schleicher was born and lived the first 
score of his years in a foreign land, qualified him to comprehend the 
nature and necessities of that large and useful class of emigrants 



which every year swells our population from Europe. A large pro- 
portion of his constituents were his own countrymen, who, like him- 
self, sought homes in America where they and their descendants 
might enjoy the privileges of free government and reap the abun 
dant rewards accruing to well-bestowed industry. For that class of 
intelligent, frugal, industrious, law-observing Germans, which are an 
acquisition to any community, and which form a considerable ele- 
ment in the population of that part of Western Texas, he was a most 
able and faithful exponent, at the same time representing with equal 
fidelity and exact impartiality the interests of all other citizens of the 
district. Transplanted at so early an age from the Old Word to the 
New, his sympathies struck deep root in the eternal principles of 
free government and drew their inspiration from the pure fountain 
of political liberty. 

He was, in fact, a thoroughly naturalized American citizen of for- 
eign birth, and loved the land of his adoption with all the strength 
of his exceptionally strong nature. 

Personally he was a favorite wherever he was known. While the 
unquestionable integrity of his character was calculated to inspire 
confidence, the strong Teutonic elements of his nature were lubri- 
cated and softened by a deep and inexhaustible flow of humor, that 
attribute of character which has somewhere been called the offspring 
of a union between wit and good nature, partaking in a modified 
degree but in an equal measure of the qualities of both parents. 
The fitful flash of wit without good nature often scathes and 
scorches; good nature without wit is as often puerile; but true 
humor warms and cheers the character and diffuses a constant and 
equal glow over the conversation of those who are so fortunate 
as to possess it. Among his friends and in the freedom of social 
intercourse this genial quality contributed not a little to render Mr. 
Schleicher an acceptable and entertaining companion. 

No man was more ready to acknowledge the merits and good 



qualities of others than was my deceased colleague and friend. 
There are few characters in which some grains of gold, some germs 
of good may not be found. These he was quick to see and prompt 
to appreciate. 

In common with the majority of his countrymen, Mr. Schleicher 
was distinguished by that innate and deep love of home, that con- 
stant interest in homely duties and enjoyment of those simple 
domestic pleasures which are within the reach of all and not beyond 
the range of any— interests and pleasures which, being habitually 
shared and enjoyed together with wife and children, knit the bonds 
of family union and raise an impregnable fortification against all 
temptation to excess. Wherever love of home pleasure forms a 
national characteristic,, as it does with the Germans, there the arts 
of peace are found to flourish in perfection, and there a cheerful and 
tranquil spirit pervades the community. An assemblage of Germans 
is rarely otherwise than pacific and good-humored, never fierce or 

cruel. 

Depending, as he did, upon his home for his highest happiness, 
Mr. Schleicher was peculiarly fortunate in his selection of a wife. 
Generous in her nature, social in her tastes, and cordial in her man- 
ners, she was his constant and congenial companion and the proper 
presiding spirit for the home he loved so well. No words of sym- 
pathy can soothe her sorrow; only that time which moderates the 
keenest anguish can alleviate the grief which time itself has occa- 
sioned. To Him, the father of the widow and the orphan, the 
assuager of every grief, we commend her, in the hope that ere long 
a tranquil sorrow may succeed the present agonizing sense of irrepa- 
rable loss. 

In Mr. Schleicher's death the country has been deprived of one 
of its wisest and ablest legislators ; the Texas pioneers have lost one 
of their most watchful advocates and strongest defenders ; his con- 
stituency a discriminating, vigilant, and faithful representative; his 



8 sc 



58 ADDRESS OF MR. THROCKMORTON ON THE 

friends a genial companion, whose attachments were deep and sin- 
cere; his countrymen in Texas a grand and noble type of their 
character, and his family their idol and treasure. His exit from life 
has left a sensible void in the councils of the nation, in the repre- 
sentation of his adopted State, and in the relations he bore to his 
own countrymen; in the social circle and at the domestic hearth. 
But he has passed out of sight and beyond recall. His work in this 
world is finished. Mortal man can neither help nor harm him more. 
Never more shall we have the benefit of his enlarged views and his 
practical good sense ; no more feel the comfort of his ready sympa- 
thy or the charm of his social and genial qualities. 

We can only endeavor to perpetuate his memory and recommend 
his example by pointing to his useful, consistent, and honorable 
career as a private citizen and public servant who has in the most 
exemplary manner discharged the duties of the one capacity, and 
served his country well and faithfully in the other, through a long 
and most trying period, with clean hands and untarnished honor. 

His book of life is now closed. Into it neither debit nor credit can 
be entered more, and in the firm belief that when his accounts shall 
have been finally reckoned for eternity the balance will be found 
largely in his favor, we bid him adieu. 

His life on earth affords a lesson which may serve as an example 
and encouragement to those who come after him. 

Lives of great men all remind us 

We can make our lives sublime, 
And, departing, leave behind us 

Footprints on the sands of time. 

Footprints that perhaps another, 

Sailing o'er life's solemn main, 
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, 

Seeing, shall take heart again. 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF GUSTAVE SCHLEICHER. 59 



^DDRESS OF ^R. ^ICKHOFF, OF JTEW JORK. 

Mr Speaker : I would fail in my duty to the memory of a de- 
parted friend if I did not add a few simple words to the many elo- 
quent orations that have been delivered in honor of the late states- 
man from Western Texas. 

Gustave Schleicher left Germany when he had scarcely arrived 
at the age of manhood. Europe then stood on the threshold of a 
new political era — on the eve of those revolutions which drove thou- 
sands of the friends of liberty from the Old World. The Lone Star 
State, about which two republics were then at war, and which the 
more powerful warrior of the North had already won, its romantic 
history, the wonderful tales of its climate, fertility, and vast territo- 
rial extent, had attracted the fancy and excited the imagination of 
many of the flower of German youth, who inclined to adventures 
and deeds of courage and of daring. They embarked, like the early 
Spanish conquestadores, on a long voyage across the seas ; not like 
those, however, for conquests by fire and sword, but for the peaceful 
triumphs of industry in the strange land toward the setting sun. At 
that time but two steam-vessels connected the old continent with the 
new. Since then these have wonderfully increased in numbers, unit- 
ing the nations of Europe into a closer bond of interests and of friend- 
ship with their descendants in the New World. A sailing-vessel 
carried them on a long and dreary voyage from their native home to 
the far-off foreign land. How often may not the recollections and 
visions of the home of their childhood, of friends, and kindred have 
dimmed their eyes on that journey ? Few of those early settlers in 
Southwestern Texas are left to mourn the loss of their comrade, 
who, after years of perseverance and toil, acquired the language and 
achieved distinction in the land of his adoption. He grew in impor- 



60 ADDRESS OF MR. EICKHOFF ON THE 

tance with his State. Of the many millions who, during the past 
thirty years, have arrived here from Central Europe, he was one of 
the very few who established a, reputation in public life, while many 
others, men of learning and of talent, followed more inviting avenues 
of industry and duty; where the difficulties of language were not ob- 
stacles in their path and where the prejudices and jealousies which 
we encounter in the political arena did not prevail. 

When I met the deceased at the beginning of the 1 first session of 
the Forty-fifth Congress his mind' seemed absorbed in the troubles 
on the Rio Grande, which then excited the attention of the whole 
country. His heart beat for the sufferings of his friends and fellow- 
citizens on the border, and he was anxiously weighing every word 
uttered by the President, by the Secretary of State, by the military 
authorities, and by members of Congress on that subject. News- 
paper articles, for the most part flippant and superficial, siding with 
the robbers beyond the Rio Grande and ridiculing the cry of anguish 
and terror of his countrymen, would often render him sad and dejected. 
When he thus believed his efforts in behalf of the Americans on the 
frontier encompassed with difficulties, he would complain of the lack 
of unity in the American people and in Congress, believing the rep- 
resentatives of one section indifferent to the fate and interest of the 
other. Great was his devotion to the country of his adoption. The 
slightest indication of danger or distress on .the Rio Grande would 
render him as sensitive as a child. Goethe relates in his "Travels in 
Italy" that one day, while in company with a friend in the vicinity 
of Sorrenfo, a peasant boy, who guided them, shouted as if seized with 
frenzy on arriving at a certain point which afforded an enchanting 
view of the surrounding landscape. When reproved for his conduct, 
the meaning of which the strangers could not understand, he replied: 
" Pardonatc, signer, quest' e la mia patria!" I was reminded of this 
incident of patriotic enthusiasm when I noticed how Mr. Schleicher 
would be touched to the very fibers of his heart by any remark 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF GUSTAVE SCHLEICHER. 6 1 



derogatory to the State and people he represented. But while thus 
devoted to his State, he was by no means indifferent to the welfare of 
the whole Union. His patriotism was as broad as the wide prairies 
of his distant home, and his knowledge of the wants of the entire 
people as great as that of the best statesman of the land. His brain 
was ever intent upon finding and creating new ways and means for 
reviving the languishing industries of the country, to give employ- 
ment to the millions of citizens who were and are suffering for want 
of remunerative labor. He believed in the so-called "manifest-des- 
tiny" theory, afavorite theme of the Democracy before the late civil 
war ; not that he desired to see other fair countries on the northern 
half of this continent annexed to our great Republic by war and con- 
quest, but he believed that they would be drawn into her embrace 
by the natural course of events. 

He was intimately acquainted with the history, geography, and 
general condition of Mexico, sometimes called our sister republic, 
and his report on our relations with that country is a State paper full 
of information and sound logic. Schleicher was a party man, but 
not a narrow-minded partisan; he was attached to the cause of De- 
mocracy, but demanded that it should be the cause of liberty and 
humanity, identical with the progress of mankind. In private life, 
in the social intercourse with his friends and acquaintances, Schlei- 
cher was jovial and entertaining. His early life in Texas, his knowl- 
edge of the history and conditions of the nations of the earth, his 
genial nature and versatility, made him the ruling spirit in a circle of 
learned men who in the course of last winter frequently assembled to 
discuss, in a free and easy manner, the questions of the day in science 
and politics. He never spoke nor acted against his convictions, 
unconcerned about the clamor of the hour or the pressure of other 
agencies. Well knowing that public opinion is as changeable as the 
weather in April, he did not allow himself to be overawed by it, but 
followed the dictates of his judgment and conscience in the pursuit of 



62 ADDRESS OF MR. EICKHOFF ON THE 

his duty as a legislator. He was as far removed from the political 
sentimentalism of a Marquis de Posa as from the demagogism of the 
"statesman" of the period. 

Not without misgivings he departed for his far-off home on the 
adjournment of Congress, leaving his large family here dependent 
upon his exertions for support. Others had become ambitious for.his 
place, and had been active in undermining him while he was here 
guarding the interests of his constituents. The convention that was 
to nominate a candidate for Congress met about the middle of July. 
He went through a long and fatiguing canvass, in which his oppo- 
nents spared neither his principles nor his reputation. He had become 
unused to the rough and reckless language of the "stump." "He 
never felt," said the worthy Chaplain of this House, " that it was nec- 
essary, in order to compass his own success, to destroy the private 
character of a competitor. But as he felt himself to be actuated by 
principles of honesty and integrity, he recognized these in his oppo- 
nents, and as a gentleman, conscious of his own honor, so he regarded 
those who differed from him in sentiment." A good and brave peo- 
ple stood by him. The memorable contest, which excited the atten- 
tion of the whole country on account of the principles involved in it, 
closed on the 5th of November with his triumphant re-election. But 
the triumph was dearly won. A languishing fever had undermined 
the giant nature of this powerful man. The insinuations and calum- 
nies which had imbittered the canvass, the uncertain future of his 
family, whom he loved and adored, weighed heavily upon his mind. 
When I met him on his arrival at the capital, I perceived that he was 
no longer the man he had been. My apprehensions were com- 
mingled with the hope that time might heal the wounds which the 
harsh aspersions of the late campaign had inflicted on his mind. The 
rest is known. Seven months ago he was full of hope for the future; 
now he lies moldering in the grave on the hunting-grounds of his 
early manhood. He fell a victim to one of the exciting political con- 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF GUSTAVE SCHLEICHER. 63 

tests, which are dangerous to all sensitive characters and feared by 
the best of men. We miss others from our midst who took part in 
the deliberations in this Hall. We mourn their loss, because we miss 
them in the councils of the nation ; we mourn for them for the sake 
of their kindred and their friends. As for themselves, they died a 
happy death, in the service of their country. They are at peace. 

" His voice is silent in your council-hall 
Forever ; yet remember all 
He spoke among you, and the man, who spoke : 
He never sold the truth to serve the hour, 
Nor palter'd with Eternal God for power." 



Address of Mr, Henderson, of Illinois. 

Mr. Speaker: It was with deep regret and sorrow that I heard of 
the death of the late Hon. Gustave Schleicher, a member of this 
body. I was returning with a sorrowful heart from the West, where 
I had just followed a beloved mother to the grave, when I saw in 
one of the daily journals that Gustave Schleicher, a member of 
Congress from Texas, was dead. I was not only surprised and sad- 
dened, but, Mr. Speaker, I was shocked by the intelligence of his 
death, for it seemed to me I had never been more forcibly impressed 
with the great uncertainty of human life. But a few days before, 
and when our hearts were filled with the gladness of the new year, I 
had met him on New Year's Day at different places where we had 
called; and at those meetings, and when I parted with him, as I did, 
Mr. Speaker, for the last time at your own house, he was apparently 
in good health, unusually cheerful, and I thought I had never seen 
him in better spirits. But now in a few brief days he had passed 
through the valley and the shadow of death, and with the lamented 
Leonard and Quinn and Welch and Williams and Douglas and Hart- 
ridge he had gone out from among us forever. 



64 ADDRESS OF MR. HENDERSON ON THE 



But, Mr. Speaker, I did not intend to occupy the attention of the 
House but a few moments. I only desired at this time and on this 
occasion to pay some tribute to the memory of Gustave Schleicher, 
and to express the high regard I entertained for him as an honored 
and useful member of this body. 

It was my good pleasure to have served on the Committee on Rail- 
ways and Canals with Mr. Schleicher during the Forty-fourth Con- 
gress, and in that service I was brought in frequent contact with him, 
early formed his acquaintance, and learned to honor and respect him 
for the intelligence and fidelity he at all times exhibited in the dis- 
charge of public duty. From my acquaintance with him, I can truly 
say I never knew a more earnest, conscientious, faithful public serv- 
ant than Gustave Schleicher ; and I believe no man ever had a 
more earnest desire than he to reach correct conclusions, nor labored 
more conscientiously in carrying them out. He was a man of inde- 
pendent thought, of honest convictions, and the opinions he enter- 
tained he freely expressed, and firmly and intelligently maintained 
when occasion required. 

Although he was born in a foreign land, he yet loved his adopted 
country, and earnestly desired the prosperity of every section of it. 
No constituency ever had a more faithful Representative than did 
the border district of Texas, which he represented in this body ; but 
while he labored diligently in season and out of season to give to 
his constituents all the protection which their exposed condition 
demanded, yet he was unselfish and patriotic in his public action, 
and took a deep interest in whatever measures he believed would 
contribute to the public good in any part of the country. It was 
with great pleasure, Mr. Speaker, that I frequently heard him speak 
of and predict the future prosperity and greatness of this his adopted 
country. He cherished high hopes for the future of the republic, 
and if he had lived and continued in the public service, I have no 
doubt but that he would have contributed, by his ability and patri- 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF GUSTAVE SCHLEICHER. 65 



otic devotion, largely to its prosperity. But he has been cut down 
in the midst of his labors and of his usefulness, and I feel to-night 
that we can truthfully say the public service has lost a valuable, a 
faithful, and devoted public servant. 

While, Mr. Speaker, we honor the memory of Gustave Schlei- 
cher, let us, his associates, address ourselves all the more earnestly 
to the conscientious and faithful discharge of our public duties ; let 
us contribute whatever we may have the ability to do to the welfare 
and happiness of the people we here represent, so that when our 
labors shall end, and we shall be called hence, we may, as our de- 
parted friend has done, leave behind us an honored name and the 
memory of an honorable and useful public service. 



Address of ^VLr. Pabell, of yiRGiNiA. 

Scarcely had the echoes of the preacher's voice, lamenting the 
death of Georgia's distinguished son, died away in this Hall ere that 
same preacher was called to announce in solemn form the untimely 
demise of Gustave Schleicher, Representative from the State of 
Texas and chairman of an important committee of this House. 

The "Dread Archer," who always "loves a shining mark," too well 
aimed his shaft, and the victim, who worthily wore the representative 
"toga" of a grand State and fitly illustrated the intelligence and 
honor of a proud people, fell to rise no more until that great day 
when the archangel's trump shall summons all nations and peoples 
to answer at the bar of " Heaven's high chancery." 

Born and educated in a land where constitutional liberty is but 
little understood, and whose systems and traditions are foreign to our 
own, Mr. Schleicher had his mind imbued with the genius and 
spirit of American institutions, and while still a young man deter- 
mined to seek fame and fortune in a country where talents combined 



9 sc 



66 ADDRESS OF MR. CABELL ON THE 

with energy and worth never fail to bring rich rewards. His good 
genius guided Mr. Schleicher to the State of Texas, which had 
lately emerged from a struggle for independence and united its des- 
tinies with the American Union. Its broad territory offered the most 
inviting field for the exercise of enterprise, energy, and talents. Mr. 
Schleicher possessed both energy and talent, and ere long he was 
called to the hall of representatives and then to the senate of his 
adopted State. The cultivated mind, the ripe judgment, the sterling 
integrity, and the solid qualities of the man displayed themselves in 
such sort, that it at once became evident that no son to the "manner 
born " could originate with more skill, uphold with more power, and 
enforce with more address those measures which tend to the devel- 
opment of a growing State than this young and gifted stranger. 

The spring of 1861 found Mr. Schleicher at his representative 
post of duty. With a sad heart he beheld the "storm god" as he 
hurled his thunderbolts upon the face of a devoted country, but with 
undaunted front he sustained the decision of his people, and followed 
the star of the South until it went down at Appomattox in darkness 
and in blood. The war over, he addressed himself with all the 
strength of his matured intellect to the duty of restoring peace to his 
State and good government to her citizens. As soon as the people 
of Texas found themselves at liberty to manage their own domestic 
concerns and to participate in the affairs of the national govern- 
ment, they sent Mr. Schleicher along with other distinguished gen- 
tlemen to represent them upon this floor. How ably he discharged 
every duty, how faithfully he adhered to the teachings of the fathers 
of the Republic, how devotedly he clung to the honor and interests 
of the State of Texas, our records will show, and our colleagues will 
bear me witness. 

No member of the Forty-fourth Congress will ever forget the skill 
and intrepidity with which Mr. Schleicher labored to secure the 
necessary legislation for the suppression of outrages along the bor- 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF GUSTAVE SCHLEICHER. 67 

clers of Texas, and his people will, I am sure, ever feel grateful for 
the relief induced in great part by the able, lucid, and exhaustive 
report submitted by him to Congress on that subject. The speech 
delivered by Mr. Schleicher upon the presentation of his report, 
while short, was telling and to the point, and exhibited well the fact 
that, coupled with a brilliant conception and handsome diction, he 
possessed the ability to deliver his blows with the force and strength 
of a Titan. 

Members of the Committee on Foreign Affairs will doubtless state 
with what intelligence and ability Mr. Schleicher dealt with the 
intricate and delicate subjects presented for the consideration of that 
body ; and no member of his own committee, that of Railways and 
Canals, will ever fail to accord to our late distinguished chairman 
the full meed of praise inspired by the impartiality and courtesy with 
which he presided in committee, and the broad intelligence and 
marked ability which he threw into the discussion of every subject 
engaging the attention of his committee. 

Of Mr. Schleicher's private and domestic relations I have but 
little right to speak, but it cannot be doubted that one possessing so 
many genial and generous traits of character was likewise the pos- 
sessor of every element which goes to make up the model husband 
and father. 

As a Representative, Mr. Schleicher was all that his people could 
have desired. Jealous of their good name, devoted to their interests, 
quick to echo their sentiments and sympathies, and swift to repel 
any assault upon their rights or honor, they had reason to mourn, as 
I learn they did mourn, the death of their gifted and accomplished 
Representative, dying, as he did, in the meridian glory of his worth 
and power. 

Peace to the ashes of one who, having sustained himself honorably 
and well in all the relations of life, has gone down to the grave carry- 
ing with him ''across the dark waters" the love, regard, and tender 



68 ADDRESS OF MR. CABELL. 



recollections of not only the people of the land of his nativity, but of 
those of his district, State, and country. 

The resolutions offered by Mr. Giddings were unanimously 
adopted ; and in accordance therewith (at ten o'clock and forty min- 
utes p. m.) the House adjourned. 



PROCEEDINGS IN THE S EN ATE 



In the Senate, January 13, 1879. 

George M. Adams, Clerk of the House of Representatives, ap- 
peared at the bar of the Senate and said : 

Mr. President: I am directed by the House of Representatives 
to transmit to the Senate a copy of resolutions passed by the House 
upon the announcement in that body of the death of Hon. Gustave 
Schleicher, late a Representative from the State of Texas. The 
House of Representatives have passed a concurrent resolution pro- 
viding for the appointment of a special joint committee of eight 
members of the House and three members of the Senate to take 
order for superintending the funeral and to escort the remains of the 
deceased to San Antonio, Texas, and the Speaker has appointed as 
such committee on the part of the House Mr. D. C. Giddings, of 
Texas ; Mr. C. M. Shelley, of Alabama ; Mr. J. A. McKenzie, of 
Kentucky ; Mr. Nicholas Muller, of New York ; Mr. G. B. Lo- 
ring, of Massachusetts; Mr. Lorenzo Brentano, of Illinois; Mr. 
M. I. Townsend, of New York, and Mr. L. Powers, of Maine. 

Mr. Coke. Mr. President, I ask that the resolutions of the House 
of Representatives be read. 

The Vice-President. The Chair will lay the resolutions of the 
House of Representatives before the Senate. They will be reported. 

The resolutions were read by the Secretary, as follows : 

In the House of Representatives, 

January 11, 1879. 
Resolved, That the House has heard with sincere regret the an- 
nouncement of the death of Hon. Gustave Schleicher, late a 
Representative from the State of Texas. 

CO 



70 PROCEEDINGS IN THE SENATE. 

Resolved by the House of Representatives {the Senate concurring), 
That a special joint committee of eight members of the House and 
three members of the Senate be appointed to take order for superin- 
tending the funeral and to escort the remains of the deceased to San 
Antonio, Texas ; and the necessary expenses attending the execution 
of this order shall be paid out of the contingent fund of the House. 

Resolved, That the Clerk communicate the foregoing resolutions to 
the Senate. 

Resolved, That as a mark of respect to the memory of the deceased 
this House do now adjourn. 

Mr. Coke. Mr. President, I offer the following resolutions: 

Resolved, That the Senate has received with deep sensibility the 
announcement of the death of Hon. Gustave Schleicher, late a 
member of the House of Representatives from the State of Texas. 

Resolved, That the Senate agree to the resolution of the House of 
Representatives providing for the appointment of a joint committee 
to take order for superintending the funeral and to escort the remains 
of the deceased to San Antonio, Texas. 

The Vice-President. Will the Senate agree to these resolutions ? 

The resolutions were agreed to unanimously. 

The Vice-President being by unanimous consent authorized to 
appoint the committee on the part of the Senate, Mr. Coke, Mr. 

Bayard, and Mr. Hamlin were appointed. 

Mr. G. M. Adams, Clerk of the House of Representatives, ap- 
peared at the bar of the Senate and said : 

Mr. President: I am directed by the House of Representatives 
to communicate to the Senate a resolution of the House inviting the 
Senate to attend the funeral ceremonies of Hon. Gustave Schlei- 
cher, late a Representative from the State of Texas, to be held in 
the Hall of the House of Representatives at three o'clock p. m. this 
day. 



The resolution of the House of Representatives was read by the 
Secretary, as follows : 

In the House of Representatives, 

January 13, 1879. 

Resolved, That the funeral ceremonies of Hon. Gustave Schlei- 
cher, late a Representative from the State of Texas, be had in the 
Hall of the House at three o'clock p. m. this day, and that the Sen- 
ate of the United States be requested to attend. 

Mr. Anthony. Mr. President, I offer the following resolution : 

Resolved, That, pursuant to the invitation of the House of Repre- 
sentatives, the Senate will attend the funeral ceremony of Hon. Gus- 
tave Schleicher, late a member of the House of Representatives, to 
be held in the Hall of the House this day at three o'clock, and that 
the Senate now take a recess till five minutes to three. 

The resolution was agreed to unanimously. 

The Senate (at twelve o'clock and fifty minutes p. m.) took a recess 
until five minutes to three o'clock p. m., and was again called to or- 
der at two o'clock and fifty-five minutes p. m. 

The Vice-President. The Senate wiil now proceed in a body to 
the House of Representatives. 

The Senate proceeded to the Hall of the House of Representatives, 
headed by the Vice-President and Secretary, and preceded by the 
Sergeant-at-Arms. 

The Senate returned to its Chamber at three o'clock and fifty min- 
utes p. m. 

The Vice-President resumed the chair. 

Mr. Anthony. Mr. President, I move that the Senate do now 

adjourn. 

The motion was agreed to; and (at three o'clock and fifty-one 

minutes p. m.) the Senate adjourned. 



PROCEEDINGS IN THE SENATE. 



February 18, 1879. 

Mr. Coke. Mr President, I ask that the resolutions of respect 
to the memory of Hon. Gustave Schleicher transmitted to the 
Senate by the House of Representatives be taken from the table and 
read. 

The Presiding Officer. The Secretary will report the resolu- 
tions. 

The Secretary read as follows : 

Resolved, That this House has heard with profound sorrow the 
announcement of the death of Hon. Gustave Schleicher, late a 
Representative from the State of Texas. 

Resolved, That in token of regard for the memory of the lamented 
deceased the members of this House do wear the usual badge of 
mourning for thirty days. 

Resolved, That the Clerk of this House do communicate these 
resolutions to the Senate of the United States. 

Resolved, That as a further mark of respect to the memory of the 
deceased this House do now adjourn. 

Mr. Coke. Mr. President, I offer the resolutions which I send to 
the desk. 

The resolutions were read, as follows : 

Resolved, That the Senate receives with sincere regret the an- 
nouncement of the death of Hon. Gustave Schleicher, late a 
member of the House of Representatives from the State of Texas, 
and tenders to the relatives and family of the deceased the assurance 
of their sympathy with them under the bereavement they have been 
called upon to sustain. 

Resolved, That as a mark of respect for the memory of the 
deceased the members and officers of the Senate will wear the usual 
badge of mourning for thirty days, and that the Secretary of the 
Senate be directed to transmit to the family of Mr. Schleicher a 
certified copy of these resolutions. 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF GUSTAVE SCHLEICHER. 



73 



Address of JAr. Poke, of Texas. 

Mr. President : We are brought again, as we have been so fre- 
quently of late, to a realization of the uncertainty of life and the 
fleeting and transitory nature of worldly pursuits, worldly hopes and 
ambitions, by the death of Hon. Gustave Schleicher. But a few 
short days ago he stood among us a physical and intellectual giant, 
in robust health, full of vigor, with a long life of usefulness to the 
country and honor to himself apparently before him. Under the 
decree of an unscrutable Providence he has been stricken down, and 
is no more. The memory of a well-spent life, of duty well performed 
to country, family, and friends ; of honor unstained, and patriotism 
unsullied, is all that is left to us of our departed friend. The mourn- 
ful duty only remains to make an enduring record of his virtues, and 
to perpetuate the outlines of his useful and patriotic life, for the 
admiration and emulation of those who survive him, and the glory 
of the country which honored and was honored by him. 

Gustave Schleicher, of Cuero, De Witt County, Texas, was born 
at Darmstadt, Germany, November 19, 1823, was educated liberally 
at the University of Giessen, in the Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darm- 
stadt. He was by profession a civil engineer, and was engaged in 
the construction of several European and American railroads. He 
emigrated to Texas in 1847, and after spending some time on the 
frontier, engaged chiefly in surveying, located at San Antonio in 
1850. He was early known and appreciated in Texas as a man of 
great erudition and more than ordinary intellectual abilities. In 
1853 he was elected to the popular branch of the State legislature, 
in which body he wielded a large influence. In 1859 he was 
elected to the State senate, and was distinguished as a senator for his 
clearness and force in debate, and for the energy with which he 



10 sc 



74 ADDRESS OF MR. COKE ON THE 

labored for the interests of his constituents. He was elected to the 
Forty-fourth Congress, again to the Forty-fifth, and after an arduous 
and exciting canvass was re-elected to the Forty-sixth. He departed 
this life, after a brief illness, on the night of the ioth of January, 
1879, aged fifty-six years one month and twenty-two days. 

He was cut down in the prime of a vigorous manhood, when his 
great intellect was in the fullness of its power, and the avenues to 
the very summit of an honorable fame were clear and unobstructed 
before him. The State of Texas mourns the loss of her adopted son, 
and on the illustrious roll of her dead heroes and statesmen, whose 
memories are her most precious treasure, the name of Gustave 
Schleicher has been recorded, and will go down to posterity 
embalmed in the affections of her people. The Fatherland from 
which he sprang can point with pride to many sons who on land and 
on sea, in the field, at the forum, and in State and national councils, 
in poetry, literature, science, and the arts, have illustrated some of 
the brightest pages of American history, but not to one who reflects 
greater credit on his native land, or served his adopted country with 
higher purpose or more devoted fidelity. German that he was by 
birth, Gustave Schleicher was thoroughly American in all his feel- 
ings, his sympathies, and aspirations. His emigration to America was 
not the freak of a dreamer, nor the fortuitous chance of an advent- 
urer, but the manifestation of that feeling, then incipient but later 
in life fully matured, which saw in republican government the highest 
interest and largest liberty for the great mass of the people, and in 
America the widest field and most favorable conditions for human 
advancement. His bold and independent intellect, profoundly versed 
in the philosophy of government drawn from personal observation 
of the practical working of the opposing theories of the Old and 
New Worlds, did not hesitate to accept American constitutional 
government as the best yet discovered for the preservation of the 
rights and liberties of men. While not an enthusiast by nature, Mr. 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF GUSTAVE SCHLEICHER. 75 



Schleicher was deeply enamored of his adopted country and its 
institutions, and gave the full force of his great abilities to their 



service. 



Mr. Schleicher's great powers, until he entered the national 
arena as member of the Forty-fourth Congress, were not known to 
the people generally, even of his own State. He was a very modest 
and unobtrusive man, and seemed rather to shrink from than court 
the public gaze. His first election to Congress was an accident, 
resulting from an exciting contest between rival favorites before a 
convention, neither of whom could command the requisite majority, 
and he was brought forward and nominated as a compromise man. 
In the Congress of the United States, Mr. Schleicher at once took 
a leading position as a debater and a profound and sagacious 
thinker. The broad field opened to him and the great questions 
which confronted him seem as if by magic to have inspired and 
expanded his intellect to the highest requirements of the occasion, 
and revealed in the unpretending but scholarly surveyor, just emerged 
from obscurity, one of the ablest and most accomplished men of his 
day. His reputation rapidly became national, and before his death 
he was universally accorded a conspicuous place in the very front 
rank of Southern statesmen. His speeches on finance have been 
rarely equaled and never surpassed for learning and ability by any 
others on his side of the question. 

His reports from the Committee on Foreign Affairs on the rela- 
tions of the United States with Mexico and on the Geneva award 
proclaim themselves the work of a master. For laborious and 
exhaustive research, profound and varied learning, clearness of state- 
ment, cogency of argument, copiousness of illustration, and sagacity 
of observation, these reports, especially the former, challenge com- 
parison with any to be found in the archives of the government. 
Mr. Schleicher's forte was an investigator; his intellect was broad 
enough to embrace and comprehend the gravest questions of State, 



y6 ADDRESS OF MR. COKE ON THE 

and muscular enough to grasp and master all details, while patient 
industry brought to his aid information from every source, and a 
clear discriminating judgment guided his conclusions. In simplicity 
of style, felicity of expression, clearness, compactness, directness, and 
force, his written papers have often reminded me of the writings of 
Mr. Jefferson. As a Cabinet officer or as minister to a foreign court 
his talents would have shone through his reports and dispatches with 
great luster. Though clear and strong as a debater, the full measure 
of his power came only from his pen. 

While he grappled and solved great problems of government and 
administration with consummate skill, he was also a man of detail. 
Nothing was too unimportant to command his careful attention 
which concerned the interests of his constituents, and he performed 
the ordinary routine of department and other business pertaining to 
his position with promptness and fidelity. In all things he was 
painstaking and accurate and thoroughly conscientious. He knew 
nothing of devious ways, and was ever straightforward and direct, 
whether attacking the position of another or stating his own. His 
intellectual organization was eminently conservative, and his opinions, 
always well defined, were the result of calm and deliberate reflection. 
His convictions when formed were intense, and he stood immovably 
by them. When his judgment was firmly convinced and he believed 
himself right, no power, no personal consequence could swerve him 
from his course. In his last arduous and exciting canvass, while a 
large proportion of his fellow-citizens of Texas differed widely with 
him on a vital question, there was an universal admiration felt for 
the sturdy manliness with which he adhered to his honest convic- 
tions and the splendid courage with which he breasted the popular 
storm. 

In his domestic and social relations Mr. Schleicher's life was a 
beautiful illustration of the highest standard of moral excellence. 
He was an affectionate husband, a kind and indulgent father, a stead- 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF GUSTAVE SCHLEICHER. 77 



fast friend, a generous and hospitable neighbor, an honest man, and 
a public-spirited citizen. His face reflected the benevolence of a 
warm heart, while his genial temper, his kindly bearing, and his 
nobility of character endeared him to all with whom he came in 
intimate contact. 

In public as in private life he was candid and sincere. He dealt 
honestly with the people, and in return received their fullest confi- 
dence. The manifestation of feeling by the people of all classes and 
conditions in Texas, and especially in his old district, where his 
remains were taken for interment, was a more touching tribute to 
his excellence as a man and a public servant than language can 
convey. To say that he was beloved by his constituents is to give 
but a feeble impression of that mingled feeling of pride and affection 
with which they regarded- him. The tearful eye, the quivering lip, 
and the lingering gaze as the vast multitude filed past to view for the 
last time his familiar features, told too plainly of the sadness which 
filled their hearts. Nor did the high qualities which endeared him 
to the people of Texas fail to raise around him a host of friends and 
admirers in this city, indeed throughout the country. 

The tribute to his memory by the great throng which crowded this 
Capitol to witness his funeral obsequies attested the high estimate 
placed upon him and the profound sense of the great loss sustained 
by the national councils in his death. The deep silence which per- 
vaded the crowded Hall and the gloom and sorrow which hung like 
a pall over the grand assemblage were eloquent of homage to his 
virtues as a man and his greatness as a statesman. Gustave 
Schleicher sleeps in the midst of those he loved and by whom he 
was beloved and honored. His record is complete ; no blot or stain 
mars its high perfection. His fame is his country's, and will be 
sacredly guarded and cherished. 

Near him lies the dust of Crockett, and Travis, and Bowie, and 
their slaughtered compatriots of the Alamo. Warrior and statesman 



7 8 ADDRESS OF MR. BAYARD ON THE 



rest together, under the shadow of monuments which for more than 
a century and a half have looked down on the historic city of San 
Antonio, but which will have crumbled and passed into oblivion 
when the memories of these great patriots and their devotion to 
country will be fresh and green in the hearts of a graetful people. 



Address of JAr. ^ayard, of Pelaware. 

Mr. President : Mr. Schleicher was unknown to me personally 
until he entered the other House of Congress as the Representative 
of the people of the sixth district of the State of Texas. Very soon, 
however, the marked ability and assiduity with which his public duties 
were performed made me aware that he was a man of unusual intel- 
ligence; and this impression was deepened upon every occasion of 
our subsequent intercourse ; so that when the information of his ill- 
ness and death reached me I felt the weight of a sincere sorrow, be- 
cause I recognized that I had personally lost a friendly and reliable 
counselor, and our country an able, steadfast, and upright public 

servant. 

The whole career of Gustave Schleicher since thirty years ago 
or more he left the home of his birth in Germany and chose a new 
home and adopted a new nationality in our land, should go far to 
disarm the unwise and narrow suspicions and distrust which from 
time to time have found expression in this country against citizens of 
foreign birth. 

Mr. Schleicher when little more than a youth came to America 
with a colony of his countrymen under the invitation of the State of 
Texas to become her citizens, proffering the inducement of the free 
grant of large bodies of fertile lands within her borders. 

It was as a civil engineer and in the survey and division of this 
territory that Mr. Schleicher's first exhibition of his ability and 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF GUSTAVE SCHLEICHER. 79 

usefulness were made. And in this line of professional duty he con- 
tinued for a long time surveying important tracts of land in that vast 
State ; in the consrtuction of railroads and other engineering enter- 
prises his talents and character were developed to his fellow-citizens. 
He was soon chosen a member of the house of representatives of Texas, 
and in the light of his performance of his duties there was elected 
to the State senate and then sent to a wider sphere of usefulness in 
the Congress of the United States. From the first to the last of this 
well-known and highly appreciated career, it would be impossible to 
find any element of perfect and unswerving fidelity to the principles 
of our government and the interests of the people which was lacking. 

During the few years of his service in Congress Mr. Schleicher 
gave abundant evidence of his capacity thoroughly to examine pub- 
lic questions with the eye of a statesman, the labors of a scholar, and 
the honesty of a patriot. Long before the death which seems to us 
so untimely, it had come to pass that a report by him upon a question 
to which he had given an examination satisfactory to himself was 
felt to be something upon which all men could rely as the emanation 
of a wise, just, and thoroughly conscientious mind. I am but one of 
many who upon reflecting upon the many measures of importance 
passed upon by Congress within the last four years am ready to ac- 
knowledge the frequent influence upon my votes of the judgment 
independently arrived at by our lamented friend. 

Of what may be termed the machinery of party and merely per- 
sonal politics Mr. Schleicher seemed to care but little. There is no 
one act that I can recall of his public life which seemed to have been 
performed with a view to personal results. The spirit that animated 
his labors here was truly a public spirit. He was in its full sense a 
statesman, a man considering affairs of state in the broad light of 
public usefulness, and without regard to his mere personal advance- 
ment. 

That he had ambitions I doubt not, but they were worthy, and sub- 



80 ADDRESS OF MR. BAYARD ON THE 

ordinated at all times to the single object of the welfare of his coun- 
try. He had the courage to face an adverse sentiment, popular in 
his hour and time. He was too true a man to withhold open ex- 
pressions of his convictions when he deemed them necessary for the 
welfare of his people. Thus, in the last canvass preceding his re- 
election, he found himself brought face to face with what he believed 
to be dangerous sophistries in respect to measures and standards of 
value and healthy finance, and it would be difficult to find in any Con- 
gressional district of the Union, or from any one assuming the duty 
of popular instruction, clearer, fuller, abler, or stronger enunciations 
of truths which he believed to be essential, although locally unpalata- 
ble, than those of Mr. Schleicher in his public addresses to his con- 
stituents. Indeed, it may be said that his death had its apparent 
cause in the zealous performance of his duties as a defender of the 
financial honor and welfare of the government and people of the 
State of Texas and of the United States. 

Even the generosity of eulogy, which grief so often betrays into 
excess, can hardly be criticised when I here say that I believe he gave 
his life in defense of what he believed to be the welfare of his coun- 
trymen. 

Although Mr. Schleicher was, I have said, no posturing politician, 
full of the arts of self-advertisement and constant proclamation of 
his own importance, yet the realities of his character had quietly, but 
surely and steadily, grown into the appreciation of his people ; and 
as one of that funeral escort to which both Houses contributed their 
members to accompany his body to its distant tomb at San Antonio, 
1 now recall what few who witnessed can ever forget, the manifesta- 
tions of public respect, widespread and impressive, which marked the 
progress of the car that bore his remains from the border at which 
we entered throughout the fertile and extensive region that lies be- 
tween Denison and San Antonio. At every station where the train 
could be stopped the sad notes of funeral marches were heard, and 



processions of citizens crowded to pass by the bier where lay the re- 
mains of their honored Representative. In these exhib.tions of pub- 
lic respect all classes and ages and races of men were mingled, and 
women came with little children, joining with their husbands and 
fathers in an expression of a sense of great public loss. Even at 
towns where the rapidity of our journey forbade the train to tarry, 
long files of citizens with heads uncovered stood in silent respect as 
the train passed swiftly by. 

There is perhaps no community on the face of this earth in which 
men are so valued for themselves, for what is in them without regard 
to inheritance of name or fortune, as the State of Texas. There is 
perhaps no community where a less percentage of the population is 
native to the soil, and where less of prejudice of race or place of birth 
exists than there, and hence it may well be understood how so ener- 
getic, honest, and able a 1 man as Gustave Schleicher made in his 
lifetime and left behind him at his death so deep and enduring an 
impression. The history of his life is full of good example. It taught 
no unworthy methods of success, none that could fail to elevate the 
character of the man who essayed it, nor fail to benefit the tone of the 
community in which it was followed. 

The possibilities of increasing and widening usefulness of such a 
man are very obvious, and as more than once has been said to me 
by sympathetic friends who knew him well : " How admirable would 
Schleicher have been as a Cabinet officer, and what a loss to our 
country it is that his powers and talents for administration could not 
have been exemplified in the highest offices of the government." 

But, Mr. President, these are vain regrets ; all that remains for us 
is to accept our loss with humility, and gain from his life those les- 
sons which it so abundanly affords, and improve our own opportuni- 
ties of well-doing while yet we may. Fortunate indeed will that one 
of us be who can justly claim such tributes of national respect and 
popular affection as were due and have been paid him, in honor of 
whose memory these words are now spoken. 



II sc 



82 



ADDRESS OF MR. MATTHEWS ON THE 



Address of ^VIr. yViA-f/THEWs, of pmo. 

Mr. President: I am not familiar with the private or public 
history and career of Mr. Schleicher. My personal acquaintance 
with him was brief, casual, and superficial; and yet the one or two 
occasions which brought me into contact with him and afforded me 
an opportunity for some interchange of opinion seemed to afford me 
some glimpses of a character that I thought eminently entitled to 
respect. For that reason, called upon so to do, I cannot forbear to 
add my tribute to that which has been and will be given by those 
who knew him better — and therefore could admire him more — the 
tribute of my respect and veneration for a character that I think 
worthy of admiration, of esteem, and of services not without great 
value to the country. 

Mr. Schleicher seemed to me to be a man of very considerable 
mark. His person and figure physically indicated that. He was a 
man among men, and his very presence seemed to bear witness to 
weight, not merely physical, but moral and intellectual; and the 
words of gravity and deliberation which he uttered on questions 
which he had always thoroughly pondered and considered seemed 
to have a due and natural proportion to the volume of his voice and 
the size of his person. 

The circumstance that he represented the most westerly district of 
the great State of Texas, that he was in consequence brought to con- 
sider most anxiously and carefully the border question that interested 
the people of his State and the people of the whole country in refer- 
ence to our relations to our neighbor on the southwest, the Republic 
of Mexico, the deep interest which he took in the development and 
propagation of those ideas which looked forward to such a change 
and transformation in those relations as would make this country the 



vehicle of peaceful amelioration and improvement to the condition of 
that country, led me first to become interested in his views. 

I was not surprised to find with what energy and earnestness and 
thoroughness he considered every matter and question which he 
took hold of. It was characteristic of his nativity, of his German 
birth and character, the serious, earnest, plodding, and enthusiastic 
way of digging and delving down to the very bottom and foundation 
of every inquiry which he began. So that there was no subject that 
he undertook to handle, or to manage, or to speak of that he had not 
previously in the most quiet and unostentatious way made himself 
master of, even to the minutest detail. 

No one could converse with him in the most incidental and casual 
way without being struck with the richness and value of the stores 
of his information that dropped from him all unconsciously, and yet 
none the less richly. 

This habit of independent thinking and research and tracing out 
conclusions of his own by the power and vigor of his own mind, with 
a view to direct and govern his own conduct, made him one of the 
most manly of men — manly in the high and best sense — for his aims 
were broad, liberal, high, and patriotic, utterly devoid of all the ordi- 
nary personal selfishness which, it is thought, is to be found con- 
stantly in the lives and plans of politicians. And when he arrived 
at a determination, it became rooted and grounded into the convic- 
tions of his mind, so that it was a part of himself, and he could as 
soon have severed any of the natural properties and parts of his phys- 
ical frame as to have voluntarily parted with an intellectual or a 
moral conviction. So that, with all the courage of his opinions, with 
all the power to assert himself upon grounds of rational conviction, 
and yet with all due and becoming modesty, he never permitted 
himself to be driven, except by the power and force of superior logic 
and reason, from any stand which his conscience and his judgment 
required him to take. And when that is truthfully said of any man 



84 ADDRESS OF MR. MAXEY ON THE 

in this world in any place that he occupies, in any vocation which 
he pursues, who has carefully furnished himself so as to be ready to 
give a reason for the faith which is in him, I think it is as much as 
can be said of or for any man, for it seems to me that it brings man- 
hood up to the very highest pitch of its perfection. 

But I forbear, Mr. President. The little that I can say to what 
has been said seems to me like the addition of a minus quantity that 
really subtracts from the value of that which those who are able to 
give positive evidence from real knowledge and actual personal con- 
tact may be better qualified to say. 



Address of Mr, Maxey, of Texas. 

Mr. President : The duty devolves on me, as the senior Senator 
from Texas, to deliver the concluding address in this Chamber to the 
memory of the late Representative of the sixth Congressional district 
of Texas, Hon. Gustave Schleicher. Mr. Schleicher was a man 
of more than ordinary mind, of unusual culture, of logical rather 
than brilliant intellect, and withal thoroughly honest. A German by 
birth and education, his residence in Texas and association with her 
people for thirty years has impressed upon him many of the charac- 
teristics of that people, and while he delighted to mingle with the 
people from his native country, he was unquestionably devoted in 
the fullest sense to the advancement of his adopted State in wealth, 
progress, and enlightenment. 

Representing the district fronting Mexico from the mouth of the 
Rio Grande to El Paso, it became his duty to make himself thor- 
oughly acquainted with the needs of the frontier, with the best 
methods of its protection, with the best means of preserving peace 
with our sister republic, and of extending our commercial relations 
with the people of that republic. The true solution of the " Mexi- 
ican problem " he prosecuted with marked intelligence. The political 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF GUSTAVE SCHLEICHER. 85 



relations of Texas with Mexico back to their earliest period of their 
political connection down to its severance, the history of Texas while 
an independent republic, and her relations to Mexico during that 
period, as well as the history of annexation, the war between the 
United States and Mexico and its material consequences, were the 
subjects of close study and thought by Mr. Schleicer. The rela- 
tions between the United States and Mexico from annexation to his 
last active labors were closely investigated. The archives of the 
State Department were ransacked for information. The military 
history of outrages, of invasions of our territory, of the pillage of 
our people, and of murder in every form, was collected and col- 
lated by him and laid before Congress and the country. 

The material gathered by him in his investigations will be a pre- 
cious mine of rich ore to the future historian of the relations between 
our country and Mexico, including the border troubles of the last 
quarter of a century. Besides all this great labor, he had to dis- 
charge all the manifold labors in Congress, in the departments, and 
in correspondence of a Representative of a district whose postal ne- 
cessities were constantly increasing and military necessities great. 
Occupying the relation to Mr. Schleicher that I did from his first 
appearance as a Representative in the other House, in December, 
1875, I speak with confidence when I say he was a faithful, fearless, 
intelligent, and capable Representative of his district, and in that 
capacity he not only achieved an excellent reputation throughout the 
State of Texas, but a national reputation besides. Nothing could 
better exhibit the character of our institutions than the position occu- 
pied by Mr. Schleicher. A foreigner by birth, he was the Repre- 
sentative of a district devolving upon him the most delicate and in- 
tricate duties, and that, too, a most enlightened district, in which 
resided many prominent and able native-born citizens amply quali- 
fied to represent any district. 

I shall not dwell upon the personal traits of the deceased upon 



86 ADDRESS OF MR. MAXEY. 

the high estimate in which he was held by all his associates and the 
people not only of his district but of his State. I shall not show 
how well this was evidenced in the various ceremonies, not only here 
at his death, but in Texas, where his remains were removed for inter- 
ment and now sleep quietly under the shadow of the Alamo. All 
this has been done, and well done. He acted well his part. Faith- 
ful and true to his people, he has passed from the stage of public 
action, leaving as a legacy to his wife and children an honored name 
and spotless record. 

The Presiding Officer. The question is on the adoption of the 
resolutions moved by the Senator from Texas [Mr. Coke]. 

The resolutions were unanimously ageed to. 



/ 



IBRARY OF CONGRESS 




